


The book of the Boy King of Hell

by thistels



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Dark Dean Winchester, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Graphic description of torture, Hell Fic, M/M, Sexual Coercion, Torture, dubious everything really, main pairing is Sam/Dean but there's some Alastair/Dean in there, they're in hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-23 12:21:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7463064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistels/pseuds/thistels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'll add more tags as I go!</p><p>I was writing a scene for another WIP when this thing just took a life of itself and became 4000 words in one night. Hah! Its a really dark fic, lots of violence, gore, torture, swearing and so on so don't read this if you're not comfortable with that.</p><p>Canon up till season 4 where it goes of track. The angels never saved Dean Winchester, the Righteous man, from hell. Sam realized that Ruby was a puppet-master pulling his strings when she refuses to help Sam find a way to get Dean out of hell, so he goes of track and the plan to get him on team Lucifer because he is high on demon-blood and rage fails. Team Lucifer needs a new plan of attack. After decades (of hell-time) at Alastair's side Alastair is certain that Dean will have no problems torturing Sam Winchester into offering up his meatsuit for Lucifer's personal use. The story starts when Sam shows up on Dean's rack and Dean ordered to make Sam say yes, or its his soul that will burn in the fires of hell forever. Again.</p><p>Dean has another plan though. Lucifer isn't the only one who could rule hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Our favorite damned hunter turned demonic star-pupil

**Author's Note:**

> There's probably a few mistakes here and there, sorry about that, I kinda just wanted to get this out there! Comments are much appreciated, I'll keep posting chapters as soon as I get done writing them.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't claim to own any characters, and I don't make any profits from this work!

“Boy, oh boy, oh boy, do I have a present for you today Dean.” Alastair’s voice was smooth as silk and dripping with the dark, filthy promise of bloodshed. It was Dean’s favorite thing to hear in the morning. The last time the demon had made a promise like that he’d given Dean the hell-bound soul of Bela Talbot, fished her out of some hole somewhere when he found out Dean still held a grudge against her. That had been about two decades ago, but Dean gave a full-body shiver as he remembered the feel of her blood gushing down his arms as he dug his hands deeper into her body, twisting his hand to grip her ribs and pull them outward to see if she did in fact have a heart. Yeah, that had been a good one.

He raised an eyebrow in question, letting Alastair know that he was curious while still being respectful enough not to demand his prize at once. The demon made its way into the room Dean had accepted as his home and stood in front of Dean where he was lounging on a couch, feet on the table in front of him and a sandwich in hand. There was no actual physical furniture, no hunger to satisfy and no real sandwich, because hello – hell. It was all demons swarming around the crimson red and jet black expanses of nothingness that stretched between the networks of souls strung up on meat-hooks waiting to be picked apart. But the illusions kept Dean sane and most parts of hell could easily be confused for the physical world topside. At least the organized parts of hell where he and Alastair were based, he’d been to the wild and uncontrolled parts of hell as well, the depths where the stuff of nightmares were born and demons who weren’t quite as civilized as the rest had their way with the leftover scraps of souls which weren’t important enough to factor into the greater scheme of things resided. It was way too chaotic for him and he’d immediately started practicing how to will the space around him into shape and to his liking. The illusion of his BBB (Bacon-Bacon-Bacon, thank you very much)-breakfast sandwich tasted way better than anything he’d been able to cook himself while alive anyway, so he counted that as a win. 

The look Alastair gave him in return was not one of a man who would humor Dean and let him finish his pretend breakfast though and Dean quickly made the rest of the sandwich disappear. He had a few moments to wonder what the hell this was all about before Alastair spoke again, but he couldn’t think of anything that would put him in a good enough mood to give Dean an extra special soul while at the same time making the demon stare at him as if he wanted to murder him in the most brutal ways he knew. And that was saying something about the severity of the situation since Alastair’s brutality was just about the one thing all beings in hell feared.

“You have three months. We need him to say yes. We’ve tried everything. I told them that you were ready Dean. I put myself on the line for you on this one. If you don’t deliver within three months, you’ll go back on the rack. And you’ll stay there until the world ends. There will be no way of getting off and if you think your first decades here were bad, let me tell you Dean, you haven’t really seen me angry.” The human form Alastair usually appeared to Dean in began floating out and blurring at the edges, as if just the thought of Dean dropping the ball on this was too enraging to focus on something as small as keeping a solid shape. “I’ve arranged for your current charges to be taken care of. You don’t rest on this one, you hear me? He needs to say yes.”

Dean was about to open his mouth and ask what the hell this was all about, but Alastair was gone before Dean could blink. He gave an exasperated sigh and mentally cursed the demon for not giving him more to go on if this was so bloody important. What was the soul supposed to say yes to? What was that going to accomplish? What was with this one that they’d tried everything and nothing had worked? Sure Dean was good but why did Alastair think he’d be better for this one than the grand master of torture since back middle-ages? 

He rubbed a hand over his face and stood, knowing that Alastair would probably come back and tear him into little pieces if he didn’t go to work at whatever soul was stretched out on the rack immediately. 

His room had three doors – one leading out to a hallway connected to the rest of hell, one leading to the bathroom and one leading the interrogation room. He headed through the last one as he changed his clothing with his mind rather than wasting a few extra minutes in the wardrobe. Alastair had started off the morning by promising him something good after all, and his blood was still singing with excitement. He always liked a challenge.

The criminals, the demons, the soldiers, the hunters – those were Dean’s preferred souls. They were tough guys, used to pain and had a higher tolerance than the average deal-making, power-hungry soccer-mom, abused teen or wall-street-banker. Most of those broke after a day or two, could hold out a week tops. That barley left Dean any time for creativity. He enjoyed to getting to know the souls he got charged with, understand what would not only break them but would render them a completely unrecognizable whimpering mess of a soul. They are so perfect like that. Beautiful. No self-awareness or protest in them, just a concentrated heap of energy in the shape of a person for Dean to command. Alastair used to complain that they made terrible demons, but he never actually told Dean to change his tactics or reprimand him for destroying potential minions so Dean figured that Alastair actually found them just as perfect as he did.

His singing blood starts boiling when he enters his interrogation-room and immediately registers the anomaly. It is supposed to be him, his knife, the rack and the soul strapped to him in the room only. A speck of dust too much ruins his entire day and if another demon dares step inside while he is working they sure as hell won’t be leaving until they’re crying worse than a schoolgirl. And this is not just any demon leaning over his instruments, running its clammy disgusting paws over Dean’s beautiful serrated knife (He’ll have to replace that one now, and fucking hell he loved that knife). He’d recognize her anywhere, even though she’s not currently wearing the form she wore when she first slithered her way into Dean and his brother’s life. He guesses spotting demons it’s just one of the things that comes with becoming one with hell at an increasingly rapid pace. She is a petite brunette now, the blond was way hotter, but she’s the same Ruby that was pulling his brother’s strings their entire last year together. 

“Dean!” The bitch exhaled and looked up from his arsenal as he closes the door behind him with a violent bang. “My favorite damned hunter turned demonic star-pupil. You wouldn’t think someone who barely got their GED would struggle with the lessons of advanced torture but Alastair just won’t stop singing your praises.”

“Ruby! My favorite… nothing actually.” Dean spat, anger barely contained as he balled his hands into fists and took a few strides across the room toward her. “What are you doing here, you psychotic bitch?”

“Aw Dean, you flatter me.” She said, letting go of his knife and putting her hand on her chest, eyes going big in mock surprise. A flash of anger surges through Dean’s very core, making him lunge at her. He actually gets two really good punches in before while she is still surprised by the outburst and he feels really fucking good for it. Never pictured that punching a girl could feel that satisfying. Once she had collected herself though Dean was forced to admit to himself that even though he could but up a way better fight now than he could when he was alive she still had the upper-hand and the strongest demonic mojo. He gritted his teeth and trashed violently against her invisible grip on his body and stared at her for a few breaths, willing her to go up in flames just like he’d willed himself breakfast and bed with magic-fingers and memory-foam. He hadn’t expected it to work though and when it didn’t he forced himself to relax even though he could feel her filthy grip holding him in place. That was the thing with hell, without the physical barriers of skin and meat and muscle touching someone else was a touch of a soul against a soul. And since a demon’s mental powers were just an extension of their once-upon-a-time-souls even their mental attacks were revolting. Last thing Dean ever wanted to do was to be anywhere near Ruby ever again, let alone feel have her stink all over him.  
To his surprise she backed off once he stopped struggling and took a few steps back. And was that respect mingled with fear he saw flicker in her eyes before she resumed her usual, bored-and-fed-up-with-the-stupid-Winchester-brother-look. 

“Actually I’m here to catch you up… on a few things. You’ve been kept out of the loop on some of the major topside happenings Dean and the bosses thinks it’s time to clue you in. And I’m here to make sure he tells the truth and to supervise your work.” She said, crossing her arms in front of her like she was expecting an argument. “Oh, and papa Alastair said everything you do to me he’ll return in plenty on you’re sorry ass so don’t even try picking another fight.”

Dean was itching to tell her to shove it, he could take whatever punishment Alastair would dish out for disobeying. It would be totally worth it to get to rip her open first. But deep down he knew that she was baiting him and really there were more important things he needed to address. 

He had stopped caring about what happened to the world of the living the second he stepped off the rack and took up the knife Alastair handed him. The things which had kept him strong, the thing’s he’d held on for had seemed to matter less and less with every day, every cut Alastair had made in his body, his soul, whatever. When he’d embraced the demonic community as warmly as any hunter could ever embrace something demonic he’d realized that not only were demons vicious, sinful sadists, they were worse than fucking politicians when it came to climbing the ladder of importance. And he sure as hell didn’t want to be a part of that whole thing, didn’t even need to since he was under Alastair’s wings (pitchfork? horns? black smoke wings?). So he’d turned a deaf ear to everything that had to do with politics, focusing only in the slide of his knife, the feel of skin giving, muscle’s tearing and bones breaking. That was what mattered, what made him feel alive in a way that nothing else in hell could, no matter how many things he missed about being alive that he tried to mentally conjure up. 

“I’m dying to know. What did I miss?” He said sarcastically, still itching to reach for some of the more the innovative weapons on his table to see if Ruby really was under Alastair’s unholy protection like she claimed to be.

“He is real Dean.” Ruby said, her eyes lighting up with a passion he’d never seen on her before.

He rolled his eyes at her for playing the pronoun game and wondered if she was trying to annoy him to death on purpose. He knew he’d been on a too good roll lately. Hell was hell, and it was supposed to be hell for everyone, not just a select few poor bastards. And if anyone would be in hell just to torture Dean personally it would be fucking Ruby.

“Lucifer.” The way she said it was something between a whisper and song, and as if she expected him to applaud or something.

“Lucifer?” He said, disbelieving. “As in the devil?” He’d heard the demons tell the tale of him of course, if there was a hell there should be a devil but not even the eldest demons had ever seen him. No one had any actual proof that he existed and every story containing his whereabouts, his plans, his state of mind and his downfall contradicted the one before. Most demons Dean had encountered didn’t believe that the devil was real and he was fine with that. The existence of the devil opened up a whole Pandora’s-box of Are there angels? Is there a god? Why the hell is god such a dick? And Dean didn’t want to go anywhere near that thing.

“Yes Dean, Lucifer, the Devil, Morningstar, Satan, call him whatever you want.” She spoke slowly, as if to a retarded child and Dean could strangle her. He really could. 

“You really do like the sound of your own voice don’t you?” Dean put in. The demon ignored him completely though and kept up her rant á la crazy.

“He is our father and he is real and he will lead us into a new era and it will be glorious.” She sounded almost dreamy at the end and Dean had heard this exact thing in different versions before. She sounded just like crazy brainwashed religious fanatics ranting on about how judgement day will come and they will go to heaven and the world will open up and swallow all the gays and the Jews. Fucking ridiculous.

He was just about to tell her that much when there was another sound in the room a chough which took Dean completely by surprise. He’d been so focused on Ruby that he’d forgotten about the real objective, the real reason for why Alastair had interrupted his breakfast. It wasn’t to that he could have a small talk with Ruby, it was that he could torture some V.I.P.

He ignored Ruby and turned toward his rack. The five-pointed star was leaning its bottom two tips on the floor of the room, standing perfectly steady due to the lack of gravity in hell. Demonic dimension outside of the earth and everything. Dean hadn’t been too interested in the physics lessons Alastair had offered him. 

The body of a young man was draped over its front, held in place by iron cuffs around his wrists, legs and throat. His hair was longer than the average man of 25 and his body certainly taller than most. Dean studied the man with growing suspicion, eyes dragging from the bare feet, to the hands where most of the fingernails where peeled off, to his face where that long hair clung to the face sticky with blood and sweat and god (hah!) knows what else. The man coughed again, head moving against the back of the rack and the cuff around his throat and drops of blood escaped past his lips. He rolled his head carefully to the side as well as he could, still restricted by the neck and some of the hair fell out of his face, revealing a pair of hazel eyes.

“Sam.” Dean whispered.

It all made sense. Why Alastair thought Dean would have better luck. Why Alastair had had to ensure to someone up top that Dean would obey, even though he’d never questioned a single order in so many decades that the numbers started to blend together by now. Why Ruby was here. 

He didn’t know if Sam had heard him, he didn’t give any indication to if he even realized it was his brother standing in front of him. But it didn’t matter. He moved over to the where he kept his knives, picking up a long sharp one and turning it over in his hands a few times like he always did to make sure that it was the right instrument to match the situation. The weight felt perfect in his hand he could hear Ruby pulling in a breath and holding it as he walked over to the rack.

He slid the knife right into the center of Sam’s stomach, through the thin shirt he was wearing, the color impossible to determine under layers of blood, soot and hell-filth, not stopping until his fingers on the hilt touched Sam’s smooth skin. The sudden attack on his body drew a long whimpering groan from Sam, Dean’s experience of cataloguing the sounds the souls made under his knife telling him that Sam’s throat was probably too raw from days of endless torture to produce any higher pitched sounds than that in his current state. 

Dean rested his forehead against Sam’s chest, his eyes closing and his breath coming heavy in long inhales and exhales. Sam didn’t smell like Sam, not the boy Dean had grown up practically attached to by the hip and not the man he’d hunted with since he’d picked him up at Stanford. He smelled like hell, like blood and sulfur and smoke. Rank and depressing and disgusting. The hand not currently occupied pressing a blade through Sam’s guts came up to dig into his hips, pressing him hard against the rack and certainly leaving bruises. He wanted to fucking tear Sam apart, to find some part of his brother that smelled like he should. Turn him inside out in his own flesh, carve away everything hell had touched. He knew that he could fix it all with the flick of his wrist, blink of an eye. That was the favorite party trick in god’s cellar. But that would be too easy. Somehow. Not enough. 

He moved the fingers still holding the knife in place a bit, the pads softly prodding at where Sam’s skin had opened up to accommodate the sharp blade. He opened his eyes, forehead still resting against Sam’s chest to feel the man’s shaky breaths. His fingers were dripping with thick blood and he amazed that Sam had any left. By the looks of him the demons had worked him over thoroughly before finally giving up and turning him over to Dean’s care. He kept playing with his fingers at the wound for a while, Sam’s pained whines turning into sobs as the pain grew at a steady pace as Dean’s prodding became more and more forceful. 

Before Dean even became fully aware of what was happening he had pulled out the knife from Sam’s stomach and made two deep slices along his chest, cut a vital artery in one of his brother’s thighs and painted the walls of the room red with Winchester blood. 

A snicker from Ruby made him snap out of the trance-like state he’d been in and he turned around on her with absolute clarity and no hesitation. He grabbed another knife from his table (Sam’s one was currently buried in one of his brother’s shoulders) and threw it at the demon, aiming and perfectly hitting the hollow of her throat. She gurgled around it, blood welling out around the blade and her eyes rolling back in her head. She seemed stunned and unable to use her powers for the moment and Dean took advantage.  
“You show you’re whore ass here again and the devil himself won’t be able to save you from the world of hurt coming your way.” He growled. “You tell Alastair that if he wants to supervise me he can do it himself or I’ll see him in three months.”

He turned his back on Ruby, barely registering the sound of the knife hitting the floor as his entire focus snapped back on his brother. His brother who was now completely unconscious, blood slowly oozing out from the violent cuts and wounds. Dean rubbed his palm across his face, not caring that it was practically drenched in Sam’s blood just like almost every other surface in the room. 

“What am I going to do with you, Sam?” He asked the unconscious ripped threads of his brother’s form as he walked over to the rack and mentally undid the cuffs holding him into place. He caught Sam’s lifeless body (soul really, but whoever cared about technicalities like that in hell) in his arms and started carrying it back to his room.

He had a job to do. Sam was just another soul put on his rack. Just like every other time it was them or him, and Dean always choose himself. He’d spent his entire selflessly sacrificing himself for other people, for strangers, for dumbasses who conjured evil things just to see if it would work, for people who sold their souls despite knowing the price. Just like he’d spent his entire life sacrificing himself for Sam, in the small ways when he gave Sam the last of the lucky charms and suffered though his horrid porridge himself, when he skipped lunch-money so that Sam could have all the necessary school-supplies, and in the big way’s when he’d let Sam go off to college even though it broke his fucking heart and when he’d finally sold his soul for his brother. His reasoning when he’d accepted Alastair’s deal had been that he was done sacrificing himself for other people. That not only had he done it his entire life, but he’d kept doing it for decades in the afterlife and where had that gotten him? Fucking nowhere. God was a bitch who should really look into the whole concept of karma and do some systematic changes to the world. But unfortunately god didn’t exist and Dean was stuck in hell suffering, so what the hell. It wasn’t like any of those other souls would suffer through decades of torture by hell’s finest for him, so why should he do it for them?

But this was Sam. It was all different when it came to Sam. If he wouldn’t put himself under the knife to protect Sam, wasn’t he just a pair of contact-lenses away from being exactly like those slimy smoke-based-sons-of-bitches-demons he claimed to hate? Could he really choose himself when the other person was his brother?

He felt completely drained mentally and physically (it was a weird thing to be physically tired when he didn’t actually have a body, like a double strain on his mental strength which his simplistic human brain interpreted as physical) as he put Sam’s body on the bed. He willed up restraints around his brother’s wrists and ankles, picturing himself tying the knots and seeing the rope tie itself. He made a series of intricate knots that would be impossible for Sam to get rid of but not too tight that he’d be uncomfortable. He racked his mind for a while to come up with the best solution to fasten the restraints with and came up with a ring from the wall over the headboard and a post at the end of the bed. He really didn’t want to know what crappy porn-set that idea came from but he was too exhausted to come up with some elaborate contemporary-brother-keeping-detaining-area which was a perfect balance between comfort and torture. Sue him.

After making sure that Sam wasn’t going anywhere he made his way into the bathroom. He stripped of his clothes and made them disappear into nothing when they hit the floor. He had no desire to keep wearing clothes which had been covered in Sam’s blood and guts. He stepped into the shower, the perfect water pressure not quite as satisfying as it had been when he’d been alive because this was hell after all, but it was good enough. He turned the heat up until it felt like his flesh would start sizzling of his bones at any second and scrubbed every inch of himself clean. He stood under the spray of water long after was done showering and ground his teeth at Alastair and his twisted plotting.

In the beginning the demon had loved to test Dean. To test his loyalty and his boundaries. He’d constantly kept trying to push Dean back onto the rack by putting forward souls handpicked to mess with Dean’s head. The souls of little girls which had been bartered by alcoholic fathers who’d rather sell their daughter’s soul than their own for a never-ending stream of liquor. The souls of hunters who’d been dragged to hell screaming by demons they hadn’t been able to take out. The souls of men who’d sold their souls in to save the lives of their brothers. But Dean had never wavered in or backpedaled on his promise to Alastair. He’d picked up the knife without hesitation no matter who was on the rack and eventually even Alastair had run out of imaginative new ways to test Dean. Turns out, the demon had had one final trick up his sleeve. 

Dean wondered if this was the one Alastair hoped would break him. Turn his soul, which was still more human than demonic despite all of his decades in the pit, into a black twisted thing with only destruction on its mind. Sure he was plenty twisted already – but he wasn’t a demon yet.

He got out of the shower after realizing that he was going to fall asleep in there if he kept trying to wrap his head around all of this right now. He pulled on a clean shirt and pair of boxers and made his hair dry enough that it wouldn’t make his pillow all wet during the night. He stepped back into his room and made the bed expand from a king-size to an extra-large king-size or whatever the equivalent of a bed enough for two grown men (one of which were tied up at the moment) to have plenty of space in, was. He got under the covers and with a look and some concentrating he started healing the wounds on Sam’s body. He didn’t go all the way, didn’t put Sam together like a blank piece of canvas like he usually did with the souls he got charged with. He let the wounds close enough that they’d hurt in the morning, but that they wouldn’t be fatal or anything, and he left the cleanup for the next day.


	2. I’m getting out of the family business Sam, and you should too

The bed moving like a dinghy on a stormy sea woke Dean up. He tried to keep his eyes closed for another few seconds, hoping that maybe the whole past day had all been a dream. Not even Winchester-levels of denial could get him out of this one though, and he knew it.

He rolled onto his side to look at his brother who was trashing against the restraints like a wild animal. He was lucky Dean had used a soft rope to bind him or he would have chafed off enough layers of skin to expose muscle already.

Sam froze when the bed shifted and his head snapped over to look at Dean as if he was just now realizing that he wasn’t alone on the bed.  
“He’ya Sammy.” Dean offered when Sam didn’t even move a muscle in over thirty seconds.

Sam exhaled a shaky breath at that and Dean could see tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes.

“I’m still in hell?” Sam asked with the resigned tone of someone who already knew the answer to their question but had to hear it out loud anyway. 

“Yeah.” Dean answered calmly, resisting the impulse to reach over to Sam’s face and wipe away the tears which started rolling down his brother’s face.

“Okay.” Sam said, and turned his head to the ceiling, his body settling against the bed as he gave up on fighting Dean’s knots. “Wasn’t sure. It’s been a while since they let me sleep.”

“How long you been here?” Dean asked.

“You didn’t know?” Sam said instead, a question and a statement all at once. Dean wondered briefly what Sam thought the reason he hadn’t seen Dean before now had been.

“No.” Dean said, gritting his teeth, murder evident in his voice and it wasn’t just the protective big brother part of him that was furious at being kept from Sam. There was another, darker part of him that wanted to destroy every single demon who’d laid a hand on Sam before he had had the chance to do so. “I would have come if I’d known.”

“To save me?” Sam asked, his voice only wavering the slightest before continuing. “Or to torture me?” He swallowed and when Dean didn’t immediately answer with the expected I’d-never-do-anything-to-hurt-you-little-brother, he continued. “I heard what they say about you Dean. I didn’t believe it at first, but now I’m here so I guess it must be true.” His brother seemed to be unable to stop talking now that he’d started, like a dam bursting. “You’re their last hope right?” You break me or no one can.”

Dean didn’t bother answering Sam’s questions. His brother knew the answers to the last one and the first two Dean didn’t have an answer for himself yet.

What would he have done if he’d known Sam was in hell with him from day one? He’d have demanded to see him for sure. Battled Alastair will everything he had, no doubt. Being brutally honest with himself though, he’d probably have put his knife into Sam then as well, just like he had the previous day.

In order to avoid both thinking and talking Dean rolled out of the bed and moved over to his wardrobe. He put on a pair of black slacks a t-shirt, his usual attire, practical when torturing. He felt Sam’s eyes tracking every small movement he made and left the door to the bathroom opened as he entered, feeling like Sam might actually burn a whole through the door otherwise. He produced a towel wet with hot water and returned to the room, walking over to Sam’s side of the bed and sitting down next to his brother’s hip.  
The slight touch caused Sam to wince, expecting pain and he was eyeing the wet towel suspiciously. He didn’t move his head away when Dean touched a corner of the towel to Sam’s dirty temple though. He let out a breath of surprise at the worm and comfortable feeling and Dean felt almost insulted.

“What’d you expect? Battery-acid?” He asked. Sam grimaced and Dean wondered specifically what rumors Sam had heard of him. 

He kept cleaning Sam’s face in silence, careful not to press to hard where his cheek was covered by a single bruise the size of Dean’s palm. He paused at Sam’s lips, tracing his thumb across Sam’s bottom lip and the split there. He had a brief flash of himself putting it there the day before and he felt the blood in his body heat up at the memory of violence. He pressed down on the cut just the slightest, not hard enough to open it back up again and draw blood, but hard enough that it had to sting and made Sam pull in an audible breath. 

“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam asked when he moved the towel down to the long column of Sam’s throat once his face was entirely free of blood and gore.

“Cleaning you up. What does it look like I’m doing?” Dean was king of impressed that Sam was able to produce a bitchface while being tied down to a bed in literal Hell with his well-on-the-way-to-becoming-a-demon-brother cleaning blood (and possibly guts, pieces of skin and other nasty substances) of him.

“Getting you ready.” He said, switching into a more serious mode. He had to force the words out of his moth but as soon as he said them he realized that it was the truth. It had never been a choice really. It hadn’t been a choice since the first time in over thirty years he didn’t feel any pain after accepting Alastair’s offer to start taking apart other souls instead of being picked apart himself. It was what he _had_ to do.

“So that’s it?” Sam said, anger evident and building in his voice. “You’re gonna torture me?”

Dean moved to clean Sam’s arm, keeping his head down, unable to look his brother in the eye.

“Dad would never forgive you for this you know.” Sam said, trying and failing to wrench his arm away from Dean’s grip, but not giving up anyway. “I’m disappointed in you Dean. I really thought you were better than this.” He changed tactics when the threat of John Winchester’s wrath didn’t even make Dean flinch. “Dean I’ve been here for at least six months by now and I’m nowhere near my breaking-point. You’ve been here less than a year and a half. What’d you do, roll over on your first day?” Sam kept going, anger turning to rage and it was a fricking impressive thing to see Sam so far gone with it. Angry enough to dig his nails under Dean’s skin, racking his brain to come up with the most hurtful things he could think of, wanting to hurt and destroy with a passion that Dean rarely ever got to see when they were alive. Sam had always kept that part of himself buried deep, his afraid to be called a monster and a freak, but now it was close to the surface, and ten times stronger than Dean had ever seen it. Dean’s little brother had changed since he went hell.

“Decades.” Dean said, almost whispered into the space between them.

The softness of his voice stopped Sam in the middle of a sentence and shut him up for a few seconds.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Time is different in hell Sammy. You think you’ve been here for months, but really it’s just been weeks topside. You say I’ve been gone for a year and a half, that’s about 180 years down here.” Dean explained calmly. Trust it to demon foot-soldiers to not even explain how hell worked at the gate.

That revelation seemed to have stunned Sam, or possibly brought him into a state of chock, because he stopped fighting Dean again and laid still on his back on the bed. Dean dared to raise his eyes to look at Sam again, but he instantly wished he hadn’t when he saw the look on his brother’s face.

“Oh no. Don’t you dare pity me, Sam. I don’t need that shit. I choose this, remember? I sold my soul, nobody held a gun to my head and I read the terms and agreements.” He said before Sam could turn this into an even worse situation by asking to talk about Dean’s _feelings_. “Sides, I only lasted about thirty years, so I guess you’re right. It is kinda pathetic.” He added, attempting to cover up the seeds of truth behind that with humor. He’d made damn sure since day one to break all of his charges before they got anywhere close to even half as long as thirty years. Whatever that said about his need to prove himself he never examined it closer.

“Dean I’m sorry.” Sam said. “Thirty years, that’s. God. I’m sorry. Dean.” 

Dean knew his brother better than to try and talk Sam out of feeling sorry for him, so he kept quiet and hoped that Sam would drop the subject.

He moved the towel to Sam’s chest, the shredded remains of his shirt disappearing at Dean’s silent command. For once in his life (or afterlife maybe, since he was technically dead, being in hell and all) Sam didn’t push the matter and seemed to get that Dean was done talking about it. He laid back on the bed, relaxing into the pillows under Dean’s gentle touch. Dean worked in silence for a while, dragging the towel over Sam’s shoulders, chest and ribs and cleaning up the layers of dried up blood. He healed the most of the wounds he’d inflicted the previous days as he went, even though he’d planned on leaving them opened for the rest of the day. His brain supplied a reason, something about more effective torture, but it didn’t measure up in priority compared to his drive to take care of Sammy.

“I missed you.” Sam said after what could really have been minutes, hours or days, Dean really couldn’t tell at the time.

“Yeah. Missed you too Sammy.” Dean said it quietly, and he meant them. He just really wished that missing Sam had kept being his biggest concern. Up till now he’d figured that being a part from his brother was the thing that really made hell Hell for him. Even Alastair, who was like a fish in water in hell preferred being on earth and that was the point after all. But now, having Sam here next to him, he realized that that had just been the foreplay in some cosmic joke that was being pulled on him. Not having Sam with him in hell had been the best possible thing. Having him here brought a whole new definition to the phrase personal hell and emotional torture.

Dean moved his hands lower on Sam’s body, his hands skimming over his brother’s stomach. The kid had really filled out since Dean had seen him alive last. He’d always been big, always had it ridiculously easy to stay in shape and always been taller than anyone in a room. But he’d gained even more muscle, his shoulders had become broader and there was something about him that had changed that Dean couldn’t quite put a finger on.

“This would be so much easier if you’d been a demon.” Sam said, his voice a bit shaky as Dean’s palm had replaced the towel and he cleaned him up with his mind instead. 

“How you know I’m not?” Dean asked, raising his eyes to look meet Sam’s. 

“You’re not.” Sam said, dead certain.

“You haven’t seen me in action.” Dean tried for some comedy, but it fell flat.

“Saw plenty yesterday.” Sam answered, his words barley a whisper and he swallowed audibly, averting his eyes from Dean to look up at the ceiling again. Dean looked away too, his eyes coming to rest on Sam’s now healed stomach. The fingers on his knife-hand curled together, remembering the feeling of gripping the hilt of the knife, hands slippery with Sam’s warm thick blood, fingers working to open him up wider. Dean might not be a demon yet but he certainly wasn’t the brother Sam knew anymore. He’d been hoping that Sam had been to out of it the day before to even realize that it was Dean carving into his body, losing himself in the blood and the way Sam’s flesh came apart under his knife. Apparently he wasn’t that lucky.

“Look Dean” Sam took a long breath and tried to move into a sitting position, only managing to twist himself into an awkward position, held in place by Dean’s firm ropes.

“No Sam.” Dean interrupted him immediately, because he knew what was coming. Sam was like an open book. It was the look-Dean-you-don’t-have-to-do-this-speech. Sam’s last desperate attempt to get through to his brother, to try and seize what he believed was a way of getting out of more torture. Like Dean was the rope and he was drowning, or the water hose and he was on fire. Too bad Dean was a bag of heavy rocks at the end of that rope, a hose filled with gasoline instead of water. “Only way out of this is if you just do what they want you to.” He continued, barley pausing in case Sam would try to cut him off. “This can be easy. It doesn’t have to be… I don’t have to… Just say yes Sam.” Dean kept going, not caring that he was sounding desperate at this point, because he had to get Sam to understand. He had to convince him to go along with Alastair’s plan (whatever that was, Dean was starting to regret not keeping Ruby along a bit longer) now, before any actual torture came in play. 

“You know I can’t Dean. They’ll win.” Sam answered, not even a little hesitant. Not that Dean had expected that much of course, it was always he who budged whenever they’d had an argument while they were alive. Why would it be any different in hell?

“So what if they do?” Dean almost shouted, suddenly getting up from the bed and started pacing in the room. “What the hell does it matter? They’re always fucking winning anyway. There’s always going to be evil crap in the world Sammy. How about not being on the losing side for eternity?” He kept going, frustrated that out of all the things he’d faced in hell Sam’s stubbornness was really the worst thing.

“That doesn’t mean we just give up! We still gotta do what we can.” The accusation didn’t have quite as much power behind it as it could have, probably due to Dean dropping the time-perception-bomb on Sam earlier but it still stung. “Saving people…”

“Hunting things. The family business? Well, I’m getting out of the business Sam. You should too.”

“It’s what we do. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

“You don’t know me anymore Sam. Alastair carved me into a whole new animal, and he did a good job.” 

“You’re still you.”

Dean stopped his pacing and pinched the top of his nose, racking his brain on who to get Sam to realize what was best for him. He wasn’t used to this role-reversal. He’d always been the one self-sacrificing one. Selling his soul, being the bate, jumping into situations they didn’t know anything about to save a civilian. Sam had been the selfish one – leaving to go to school despite knowing what’s out there just because he’d wanted a normal life. 

“You don’t get it, do you Sam?” Dean said, exasperated. He knew he had to get on with it, Alastair usually gave Dean all the privacy he needed and trusted Dean as much as any demon trusts someone. But Dean wasn’t stupid, and Alastair wouldn’t be reckless enough to give him completely free rains. If Winchester-blood didn’t start flowing soon he was sure to come visit. “This isn’t a situation where I have a choice. This isn’t me selling my soul so that you can live. I’d do that again. This is me ending back up on hell’s bad side again, for eternity this time, and I don’t even get anything out of it. You’ll be in hell too, just as screwed. I’m giving you a chance here, man. Just do what they want and get a nice happily ever after for it. I’m doing this for your own damn good. I’m giving you a chance here.” Dean didn’t even try to decode the emotions running across Sam’s face as he spoke, he just knew that his brother was taking all the wrong things away from what he was saying because Sam’s jaw finally set in defiance.

“You’ll have to torture me then.” Sam said when Dean was done, calmly and matter-of-factly and it took Dean by surprise. 

“Dammit Sam!” Dean did yell now. “I like it. This isn’t just me doing this to get away from the pain anymore. I’m good at it and I like it. You hear me? I’m gonna… Fuck Sam, I’m gonna break you.” He felt his eyes starting to fill up with tears as he pushed those last few words out. He pictured Sam at his feet, perfectly broken just like every other soul that had gone under Dean’s knife, and for the first time since he’d gotten off the rack Dean didn’t see a beautiful work of art before him. Just a terrible waste, destruction of something that had been way better before.

“Do what you have to Dean. Maybe I break. But I won’t go without a fight.”

Dean punched his fist against the closest wall and felt bones shatter inside his hand. Damn his stubborn brother. Sure, objectively Dean admired Sam’s stubbornness, and it it’d been any other situation he’d been damn proud of his brother. Despite already having over six months of experience will what hell had to offer Sam didn’t even appear to be scared of what was to come. Dean hadn’t had met a soul that hadn’t already been shivering in fear and ready to give up before he’d even introduced himself in years. But right now, in this situation, there was nothing admirable about his brother’s thick-headedness.

With the flick of Dean’s wrist (of the hand he hadn’t just broken) Sam disappeared from the room, back up on the rack to await the inevitable. Dean stayed in his room for a few more moments and healed his hand while he slowed down his breathing and tried to collect himself and rein his emotions in. He made a detour to the bathroom, rinsing his face with cold water for a few minutes and pointedly not looking himself in the mirror on the way out.


	3. Son of a bitch

“Okay, so catch me up. Wha’d I miss since Lilith’s lapdogs dragged me down here?” Dean asked as he entered his workshop slash torture-dungeon. Sam winched at his words, probably at the memory of seeing Dean’s body being torn to shreds by hellhounds and yeah, that wasn’t one of Dean’s favorite memories either. But he’d gotten over it. It was strange to remember that this was all fresh to Sam, that it hadn’t even been two years for him while it felt like lifetimes ago to Dean. It _had_ been lifetimes ago. “Is Candice still the hottest Victoria’s Secret Angel?” He asked with a smirk as he tried to shake the memory of his days fighting evil by Sam’s side. His brother’s arrival had brought all of that back to the surface, all the things which had been buried beneath pain and anger and sulfur for decades. “Who’s the president? Have they cured cancer yet? How the hell did you die? And why is Ruby here, walking around like she didn’t just spend the last few years betraying her own kind? Huh?” The words welled out of him and he couldn’t get them out fast enough, almost yelling at the end. So much for the strategy he’d come up with. 

Sam was quiet for a while, looking like he wasn’t even going to be civil and answer Dean’s questions out of spite, but just when Dean was going to reach for a knife to start carving the answers out of his brother Sam spoke.

“Look, Dean, after you were… After Lilith… You were gone okay? I needed _something_ . Ruby was there.” He had this look on his face that said that Dean wasn’t going to like this, and Dean clenched his teeth because really? Sam had managed to screw up enough in a year and half that he didn’t even want to tell him?

“You’re not making a whole lot of sense there Sammy.” Dean said, not really putting a lot of energy behind trying to drag the answers out of his brother.

“Look, Dean, it’s not going to make a difference.” And Dean felt his stomach sink in his body. This was bad. This was going to be worse than when Sam asked him to drive across state-lines while Dad was busy hunting because that’s where his closes P.O-box was and he wanted to know if he’d gotten into any of the colleges he’d secretly applied for. It was going to be worse than finding out that Sam had visions of the future and everything else bad that had followed them though their entire lives. Great, like Dean needed more crap on his plate right now. As if tearing his brother, the one thing he actually ever gave a crap about, into little pieces and in doing so furthering the demonic agenda in some obscure way wasn’t bad enough? 

“Just get on with it.” Sam said, and if Dean hadn’t spent almost his entire life at Sam’s side he’d probably have been fooled by the way bravado in Sam’s voice. But Dean knew Sam, he could read his tells and he knew hell. He’d seen Sam the previous day, the traces hell’s six month long welcome-party all over him. His brother was putting on a brave face. His eyes moved ever so slightly from Dean’s face sometimes, toward the shiny instruments on his table and his lips would twitch nervously. Dean didn’t know if Sam even knew he was doing it. Probably not. But he could see that the torture was wearing on Sam, his body was all tense and bracing itself for what was inevitable.

“Here’s how this is gonna work Sam.” Dean said, thinking that the plan he’d gone into this with might work anyway, if his brother’s body language was anything to go on. “I ask a questions, you answer them truthfully and this doesn’t have to get ugly. If you don’t something’s gonna start hurting. You lie to me and it’s gonna get worse, and trust me, I’ll know if you lie. This is hell.” He continued, laying out the ground-rules for his brother the same way he usually did whenever he started working on a new soul. “That means it’s all on you. You can end this at any time, how much you suffer is call, and yours alone. It won’t stop until you decide to make it.”

Sam didn’t move or acknowledge him in any way, not that Dean had really expected that from his stubborn brother but still. He was used to being showed more respect in his own studio. Even Alastair didn’t mess with him in here.

“Or I could just ask someone else, if you’re gonna be like this. I mean I prefer to have some long overdue brother-bonding-time, but this is work, and management is going to be pissed if I don’t meet the deadline.” Dean took a few steps toward Sam, a beautiful knife with runes along the middle of the blade in hand. It was a great weapon, had been a gift from Alastair and the runes weren’t just for decoration, they were written in an ancient language only demon used and turned burning hot whenever they came in contact with blood. “Maybe I’ll call up Ruby, get the scoop from someone on the inside.”

At least that got him a reaction. Sam’s eyes snapped back to Deans from where they’d been eyeing the knife and Dean was surprised by the pure hatred in them. Sam had been pushing Ruby so hard at the end that Dean had felt like vomiting and when Hell swallowed him and Ruby hadn’t had a front-row ticket to any of his torture-sessions he’d figured she’d found a way to slither out of hell and go be Sam’s BFF again, now that he wasn’t in the way. So yeah, the look of murder on Sam’s face was not the reaction he’d expected.

“Bitch didn’t seem very upset about the fact that you’re in hell. You know, like you’d expect from a trusted ally. You were all cozy with each other before I went and now she’s practically jonesing to see you get picked apart. There’s got to be a good story behind that. I’m sure she’d love to tell me over tea.” He jumped to the second possible assumption – that he’d been right about the demon the entire time and she’d sold Sam out to the bad guys at some point.

“She was telling the truth Dean.” Sam said, and Dean was really starting to get annoyed with this allergy to straight answers-thing.

“Hm? What?” He said, cocking his head to the side and trying to figure out what vague point in time Sam was referring to.

“Yesterday.” Sam said and swallowed hard before continuing. “About Lucifer. The devil is real and she wanted, wants, me to open his cage.”

“Cage?” Dean asked, feeling like he didn’t quite focus on the right thing here but this was a bit much to take in at once.

“Yeah, God created it to serve as a prison for Lucifer.” Judging by Sam’s tone his brother seemed share the sentiment that Dean was paying attention to the important stuff.

“The devil is real? Seriously?”

“Yes, Dean.”

Dean stared at Sam as he tried to wrap his head around that. Sam wasn’t lying, he knew that, because there was no lying on the rack. There was a really complicated pattern of runes carved into the metal of the thing which Dean was eternally grateful for only having to do once, that made any soul who explicitly lied start writhing in terrible pain. 

“You really didn’t already know that?” Sam said and there was Dean’s brother, suddenly seeming to have forgotten about being and hell and the knife Dean had in his hand because that was _not_ the kind of tone he should be using in this situation.

“Yeah well. I’ve been busy.” Dean said after a paus which was a bit longer than he had liked it to be, but what the hell, he’d just been told that the devil was actually real so excuse him for being a bit slow on the uptake. He straightened his back and shifted the grip on the knife in his hand a few times, trying his best to get back into character because this discussion had suddenly gone off the tracks and he needed to stay on the straight path if he wanted to get through this thing. No side-turns. No diverging from the plan.

“I’ve got a feeling I’m not getting the full story here, Sam.” He said and took another few steps toward his brother, standing close enough to hear Sam’s breathing.

“The demons want to release Lucifer into the world, do you really need more?” Sam said there was no doubt now that he was hiding something and purposefully not telling Dean everything. 

“Why you?” Dean asked and he knew that the question was right on the spot when Sam turned his head sideways to avoid looking at him. “What makes you so special? Why are you so important?” Sam had always been, still was, the most important person of Dean’s life. He had been Dean’s entire world and he was more special than anyone knew, but that was to Dean. To John once, and to Jessica. There had to be some reason for why the demons needed Sam so bad that killing him and being done with it just wasn’t good enough. Sam was dead, the devil wasn’t free and breaking Sam was the most important job Dean had ever been given.

“Dean, please just drop it. You don’t wanna know.” Sam pleaded. Yeah, as if that was going to work.

Dean took a deep breath and tightened the fingers around the knife. He’d given Sam all the chances he could at this point, and if his plan was going to work he was going to have to get to implement the rules he’d set before Sam learned that he could get away with not answering Dean. He said a mental Sorry, Sam, before moving the knife to stab it into one of Sam’s impressive chest muscles.

The knife stopped, not even an inch from Sam’s skin as if Dean had hit an invisible wall. Completely taken by surprised he put more strength behind his arm and got a little bit closer to Sam’s body, but it felt like he was pushing an entire mountain in front of him instead of just a knife.

“What the..:” He mumbled to himself before he realized that Sam entire body was shaking, and his brother was holding his breath. “Sam?” He said, finding this thing harder to believe than the fact that the devil was real despite seeing it with his own eyes. His brother’s face was drawn up in exertion, as if he was lifting something equivalent to the weight of a house. Dean took a small step back, not enough to be out of Sam’s space but enough that the knife wouldn’t be too close for comfort.

“You’ve got some serious explaining to do” Dean started, but he stopped instantly as Sam slumped against the restraints binding him to the rack. “Sam?” Dean immediately shifted from freaked the hell out to concerned and he dropped the knife to the floor as he got his hands in Sam’s hair to tilt his head up. His brother was unconscious for the second time in two days and when Dean snapped his fingers to wake him up he didn’t as much as get a twitch in an eyelid in response. Which was seriously wigging him out, because instant healing wasn’t the only trick in hell designed with the simple purpose of driving the tortured souls out of their minds. There was also a simple way wake up the souls who fainted and took respite in the nothingness of not being conscious and escaping the pain that way. And it always worked. Dean almost checked his own more or less demonic abilities to control the space of the dimension around him to see if maybe there was something wrong with him, but he stopped himself because that was too fricking paranoid. No, this was all Sam. And sam should not be able to do anything like this. Fricking demons couldn't pull stuff like than to stop themselves from being tortured, and they were fricking demons.

“Son of a bitch.” Dean exhaled, but before he was even finished his own voice was drowned out by the sound of a large dog barking furiously and he realized that he’d spoken to soon. _Now_ was the appropriate time for a son-of-a-bitch.


	4. Molly, meet Sam, by brother. Sam, meet Molly, my hellhound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to add an additional warning for really graphic descriptions of torture, so if you're not comfortable with that you shouldn't keep reading.

A knock on the door interrupted the series of barks before Dean could even react enough to move toward it. The desperate rhythm of the knock in combination with the fact that it wasn’t a panicked banging amused Dean to no end. Demons caught between a rock and a hard place was Dean’s favorite thing apart from torture. He knew exactly what awaited him on the other side of the door without even being told. Apparently the only other thing aside from Alastair he tolerated in hell had come back to his corner of the world at some point, and now someone was trespassing on Dean’s (and by extension her) territory. Dean almost felt sorry for the poor bastard which was bound to be scared shitless (and rightfully so) while at the same time being even more scared of disrespecting and angering Dean. Then he remembered that whoever they were they were probably sent by Lilith, Alastair or whoever else had a stake in the whole Sam-business, to check up on him, and he considered letting them squirm for a while longer.

He decided against that in the end though, mostly because he hated the thought of a demon being anywhere in the vicinity of Sam longer than it had to be. He walked across the room and opened the door by hand, not planning on allowing some low-life demon letting themselves into his home.

As he swung the door outward the was indeed met with the sight of a hellhound sitting just out of range of the door and a demon standing wearily a good few feet up the hallway. The barking stopped as soon as he opened the door, but the otherwise the dog didn’t move a muscle and Dean knew without having to see it that both of its red eyes were fixed on the demon.

“Yes?” Dean said impatiently when the demon didn’t immediately spoke.

“My name is…” The demon started but Dean interrupted it.

“Don’t care what your name is.” He said and the hellhound growled as if to punctuate that. “All I wanna know is why you are interrupting me when I’ve got a hell of a lot more important things to do than answering social calls from low rank losers like yourself.”

“And if you’re thinking you’re gonna be my babysitter, think again. I already told Alastair that if he wants something he can talk to me himself, I don’t answer to Lilith and whoever else thinks they have any authority over me are welcome to test their theory. _But not while I’m working_." He laced those last words with all the rage and frustration he hadn’t been able to take out on anyone that day. While he had been a master at the whole pent-up-feelings-thing when he was alive, he’d gotten quite used to having an endless supply of souls to let all of his feelings loose on lately. He couldn’t even remember the last time he hadn’t been buried elbow-deep in some soul in over 48 hours, and let it be said that no therapy beat therapy by torturing. That shit cleared his mind and left him a whole new man every time.

Despite the dark threat in Dean’s voice, the fact that the soul obviously knew Dean by reputation and the way the hellhound moved its ears as if it had a really hard time keeping still the demon didn’t immediately disappear. Dean didn’t know if he should feel sorry for the demon’s stupidity or if he should be impressed by its bravery. Although on closer consideration bravery had probably nothing to do with it, he was probably just more scared of some other demon than of Dean.

“Alastair sent me in good faith, not to insult you.” The demon started, carefully considering each word as if he was diffusing a bomb. “I’ve been on earth for quite some time now, and he thinks I’ll provide a… unique perspective.” The demon was smirking now as if he was proud of himself for whatever twisted thing that made demons proud and it was starting to get on Dean’s nerves. He had the form of some wall-street-banker or lawyer, the kind of person Dean would have wanted to punch even before he knew there was a demon inside, and that wasn’t exactly making it easy on Dean to be somewhat civil to Alastair’s minions. He figured that he could only be so disrespecting toward his mentor before the demon _actually_ came knocking himself and demanded a private showing of Sam’s internal organs. 

“See Dean, the boss seemed a bit concerned at how personally you seemed to take this one. And neither Ruby nor Lilith have any faith in you.” The demon’s tone changed from to that of someone stepping around shattered class to that of someone who had the upper hand. It was condescending to say the least, and it made Dean’s blood boil. “So you’re going to get a ‘babysitter’ weather you like it or not, and we might as well be civil about it.” Whatever hesitations the demon had had in the beginning seemed to have disappeared somewhere along his rant and he seemed to have gotten a real ego-boost from throwing around the big names. Dean wasn’t having it.

“That’s sir, to you.” He said, enjoying the way the demon’s mouth curled up in a challenge at those words. Cutting that off its face would be incredible satisfactory. “And I’ll give you one more chance to disappear as far away as this place goes before I make you her lunch.” Dean nodded toward the dog still planted at his feet, and it stood up on all fours.  
The demon blinked and Dean could see its internal struggle for a fraction of a second. It wanted to run, pride be damned, but he had orders from Alastair after all.

Dean had never really figured out the level of intelligence and sentient that the hellhounds possessed, and whether or not they understood human language, could read minds or were just really susceptible to body-language, but the dog took a huge leap toward the demon before Dean even finished his “Go get him.”

Dean almost winced as he watched the hellhound’s jaws clench shut around the demon’s ankle. He knew firsthand what those teeth felt like, and despite it being a century ago since he’d been dragged to hell by the leg that was a memory that would never fade.

The demon was being dragged through the door before it got over the chock enough to try to get free. There was no way a demon could overpower a hellhound though and satisfaction ran through Dean’s body as he heard bones shattering as a result of the demon’s struggle. He didn’t deserve any less for coming on to Dean’s territory and trying to boss him around.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” The demon shouted. Dean ignored him, but it kept going, as if listening to his condescending voice would make Dean _more_ inclined to let up on him. “I told you, Alastair sent me and _ordered_ me to…”

“Yeah, Ruby walked around here thinking she had the big man’s protection too yesterday. Ask her how that went. I didn’t get any complaints from anyone. Well except maybe from her but she was choking on her own blood at the time so I couldn’t really hear her.” Dean interrupted, and okay, maybe demons weren’t the only ones who liked the sound of their own voice.

He produced a mirror of his rack in front of the one still holding an unconscious Sam. Too many demons had laid their eyes and paws on his brother down here already and Dean didn’t want to add this one to the list. He felt the demon struggle against his mental power as he motioned with a hand to attach it to the free rack, but when he put in a bit more effort the demon went crashed against the rack. Dean didn’t doubt that he’d be able to overpower the demon for a second, he’d only come across a handful of demons which could in the last decades. And apparently now there was Sam to add to that list.

Dean walked up to rack and produced cuffs to hold the demon in place. He didn’t let go of the man with his mental powers until he had carved a few power-symbols into the iron keeping him in place tough. He did it to ensure that he wouldn’t have to hold the demon with his mental strength the entire time or have him get away, that would be a bitch. The demon trashed against the rack and the cuffs the entire time and once he was dangerously close to whipping his head around and attempting to bite Dean’s ear off. Dean had been concentrating on drawing the correct patterns on the shiny new rack and it was only the hellhound’s warning bark that made him step out of the way in the last second. Gritting his teeth in anger he swung his fist toward the demon’s face, not counting how many punches he gave but not stopping until his fingers were stained with the demon’s blood. He returned to finish the symbols and wondered why the hell the racks couldn’t just come complete with the appropriate wardings as his fingers itched to do more than just punch the demon.

He finally straightened his back after a few minutes of concentration and let go of the demon with his own demonic powers to see if the rack would hold it. He was used to relying on his own rack that had so many wards and runes on it at this point that he could barely remember the function of some of them. The demon didn’t go anywhere though despite the obvious attempts at pushing free.

“Now” Dean started, satisfied with himself as he walked over to where he kept his knives and other instruments. “How about we try this again.” He continued as he ran his eyes over the different knifes. He settled one with a slight bend at the tip and walked back over to the rack. “With a change in attitude from you, for starters. I don’t care if you answer to Alastair, Lilith or the fucking devil himself, I’m your biggest nightmare now.”

“You’re fucking crazy!” The demon almost screamed at Dean, the last syllable disappearing as Dean’s knife pierced his throat and came out on the other side. Dean wiggled the knife around a bit and was rewarded with gurgling and choking noises as the demon probably tried to continue cursing. He drew the knife out again, slitting the demon’s vocal-cords and trachea, and almost severing its head. Blood gushed toward the floor and Dean didn’t bother trying to keep it away from his clothes. Magical demonic dry-cleaning was a nice perk of torturing people in hell. He remembered that having been a huge bitch in life. He’d lost count on how many items of clothing he’d lost to shapeshifter-goo and chupacabra-slime by the time he was eighteen. 

“I’m sorry, what was that? Couldn’t quite hear you there.” Dean mocked the demon as he went to work on removing the suit it was wearing. He cut into the jacket’s seams and followed them along the fabric, pressing deep enough that he could feel the knife scrape bone on occasion. The dark brown suit jacket fell to pieces (who wore a brown suite jacket with black pants anyway? Fricking fashion-crime, Dean was really doing the entire world a favor. Not that he cared about fashion, of course) and hit the floor with sloshy sounds from being drenched in blood. He let the patchwork that was the demon’s upper body heal slowly, cell by cell, the healing just as excruciating as the tearing if you knew how to drag it out just right. 

Dean kept slicing into the demon and putting it back together for a while, time didn’t really matter to him when I had a knife in his hand and blood was in the air. He felt alive as the demon’s scream echoed through the room once its throat had healed enough and the sound struck the very core of Dean’s being, way better than any classical rock he’d ever encountered. He only paused when he had to step out of range to avoid being hit with a sudden wave of vomit from the demon as Dean fed tried to force one of its eyeballs down its throat. “Disgusting.” Dean muttered from himself and in the corner of his eye he saw how the hellhound, which hadn’t left his side since it’d come into the workshop, moved out of the way as well. 

“Keep your bodily fluids to yourself will you?” Dean said angrily as he stepped around the mess on the floor. Blood was one thing. Blood was… pure. Or whatever, Dean wasn’t really one for romantic metaphors. But anything else coming out of a person (or demon, maybe especially demons) was really disgusting and should be kept inside and not get all over his shoes.

The demon coughed a few times, struggled to breathe and no doubt having a mental breakdown from the overload of pain his brain was catching up to register. The jelly-like lump escaped his mouth after a few coughs and bounced a few feet on the floor and Dean had never been a big scallop-fan before but now he decided that the last time he’d eaten one would be the last one ever. The hellhound at his feet didn’t seem to share his sentiment though, its front paws stepping and its ears flickered between Dean and the discarded body-part. Dean rolled his eyes at it, reminding himself not to let its tongue go anywhere near his face afterward. “Well go on then.” He said waving it toward the eye and turned back to the demon to avoid having to watch the rest of the scene.

“Now I remember you saying that you had some _unique perspective_ for me.” He said to the demon, throwing its words back at it with mockery in its voice.  
The demon laughed, the sound barley recognizable as a laugh if it hadn’t been for Dean’s extensive experience with stubborn demons who didn’t know when to just give up. “I ain’t telling you shit.” The demon spat out, doing a pretty good job at being stoic but it couldn’t hide the way its fingers were twitching slightly and the nervous way its eyes tracked every slight movement Dean’s knife-hand made. He wouldn’t last much longer, probably just needing to make that one final stand for the sake of his pride and fine, Dean didn’t mind going another round on him.

He switched out the knife for something less like a knife and more like a sword this time, one of its edges serrated instead of smooth and sharp. He angled the blade from one of the demon’s shoulders to the opposite hip and pressed the blade’s hooks into the skin as slowly. The demon didn’t last three seconds before it threw its mangled head back toward the rack and started screaming as the pain of being torn in half took over every fiber of his being. Dean bared his teeth in an almost animalistic smile and pressed the blade further in, really putting his back into it now as the blade hit bone. He studied the veins on the demons neck, wondering if maybe one of them was going to pop on its own from the strain when he noticed a sudden movement on Sam’s rack. He snapped his head away from the demon’s and kept pressing on the blade but eased up on the sawing to get through its bones.

Sam’s eyes were fixed on Dean’s and Dean tried but he couldn’t quite read the intense expression on Sam’s face. All he knew was that it wasn’t fear, disgust or any other or the things he’d expected from his brother. He couldn’t help flash Sam a smile, as if Sam had just caught him with his pants down halfway through a threesome or something equally awesome but inappropriate. Then the demon decided it’d had enough of Dean’s warm up.

“Fine.” It said, stuttering on the word and struggling to get anything out of his mouth. “When I was on earth, your brother exorcised me.” It kept talking despite its obvious struggle to do so with a blade halfway through its torso when Dean made it clear that he wasn’t going to let up on anything until he actually got something. 

“That’s it? In case you weren’t aware, my brother is a hunter. He’s probably exorcised half of all the demons down here at some point.” Dean said and pressed the blade another inch into the demon’s lungs to make his point. 

“With his mind.” The demon said and Dean yanked the blade out at that and let the demon’s body heal enough that it could speak clearly. “No Latin, no witchcraft, no sigils. Just his mind. And more than a half-gallon of my blood.” He added the last piece of information after a quick paus to catch his breath and Dean seemed to have done a real number on him since he didn’t even smirk at the surprised look on Dean’s face. 

Dean past the demon’s shoulder to Sam who had gone stiff against the rack, his eyes darting nervously from Dean and back to the walls of the room. “Dean” Sam began.

“You keep quiet. I’ll deal with you after.” Dean said, using more force and anger than he actually felt to convince the demon that he was following Alastair’s orders and not going soft on his charge just because the soul happened to be his brother.

“That all?” He said turning back to the demon. “You think I couldn’t have gotten that out of him myself?” He said, pouring anger that really had nothing to do with the situation into his words to make it convincing enough.

“Alastair” The demon begun but Dean cut him off, sick of being berated to about being Alastair’s bitch.

“I already told you, and him, that I don’t need any _help_ But I don’t think neither of you are getting the message. You know what sends the best message? Killing the messenger. But since that’s not an option I guess I just have to settle on torturing the messenger.” Dean wasn’t really that worried about getting retribution from Alastair. If the demon was really worried about Dean dropping the ball he’d come down himself, he wasn’t one for sending henchmen to do his biddings. He preferred to get in on the action himself and had made the saying if-you-want-something-done-properly-you-have-to-do-it-yourself as his motto early on. And even if he would deem himself above checking in on Dean he would definitely not send some sleazy no-name-demon incompetent enough to have been worked over by one Winchester-brother already. No, it was clearly evident that the only message this demon was here to rely was an I-haven’t-forgotten-about-you-you-know. And Dean had no interest in having Alastair (or any other demon on the top for that matter) to breathe down his neck and look over his shoulder by sending minions to check in every five minutes.

He ignored the demon’s protests as he put the sword back in, wedging it in between two ribs and driving it straight through one of its lungs until it could neither breathe nor make any more annoying sounds. He lost himself in the artwork of the shredded demon’s figure and almost forgot that Sam was watching him from behind the rack. Every now and then he threw pieces of the demon out into the air beside him, each one of them caught by the hellhound before they hit the ground. The demon choking on its blood, fighting to breathe as it drowned on its own blood, struggling to scream to vent some of the pain, its limbs spazing randomly and uncontrollably, was intoxicating to say the least.  
What made him stop eventually was the way his clothes were sticking to every inch of his body, three times as heavy as they should be, weighted down and soggy with blood. He reeked of sulfur and demon, his adrenaline was pumping enough to make his head spin and the last piece of demon flesh he threw at the hellhound fell to the floor. His hellhound being full was one of Dean’s more usual methods to keep track of time when he tortured, instead of hours. He stepped back from the demon and put the sword to rest against the wall, not wanting to get blood all over his other instruments. The demon on his rack was completely skinned, the muscles exposed and raw and looked like ground meat, all cut up and abused, barely hanging off the bones. It was a good day’s work. 

Dean made the rack disappear and swung the door to the hallway open. 

“Now you can go tell everyone that I just had to waste the entire afternoon making you all pretty, which means that I lost several valuable hours doing what I’m supposed to be doing. He said and gestured with his arm toward the hallway.

The demon struggled to get up on two legs after slumping to a barley recognizable pile as the rack vanished, but when he hellhound started growling as if it sensed Dean’s lack of patience it gave up on whatever dignity it was trying to hold on to and started crawling toward the exit on all fours. Damn, Dean was good.

The door closed the second the demon was entirely outside and Dean let out a long breath of relief and removed the t-shirt he’d been wearing. The temperature had risen in the room and he was suddenly aware that he was sweating. After throwing the shirt somewhere in a corner he rested his head in his palms for a few moments, collecting his thoughts and finally allowing himself to wrap his head around what the things the demon had told him about Sam actually meant. The sound of claws against stone made him look up just a few seconds later though and he frowned as he saw the hellhound making its way over to Sam.

“Hey, quit looking at him like he’s desert. He is off limits, you hear?” Dean said with a stern voice and the dog turned its head to look directly at him for the first time that day. It was a dog, and its features were a bit smoky and uneven, blurring together around skeleton just like the demon’s true forms but he was still pretty sure that he could distinguish facial-expressions. If the dog had been able to speak Dean would have been sure that he’d been met with a ‘Really? Are you sure? Why?’ He growled at the hellhound, making the sound low in his throat and met its eyes, giving the murderous stare as good as he got it. It took two slow steps toward Sam, stretching its neck out to nip at the edge of Sam’s jeans. “Hey!” Dean called, clapping his palms and stalking over to get between Sam and the dog. “I said, _mine_."

The dog bared its teeth at Dean and took a step back and for a few moment the only thing heard in the room were Sam’s quick breaths. Then Dean and the dog relaxed, seemingly at the same time, and broke the tension. Dean’s face broke out in a smile and he bent over to embrace the dog in an awkward hug as it started licking drops of demon-blood of his face. Its sharp tongue definitely wasn’t made for cuddling and Dean stood up after a few licks, laughing as he petted the dog between its large ears. He turned to Sam, grinning proudly at his brother as he pointed to the dog which had abandoned any thoughts of chewing on Sam’s legs.

“Molly, meet Sam, by brother. Sam, meet Molly, my hellhound.”


	5. We are ditching this joint and getting our asses back topside

Sam was staring. Hadn’t said a word in several minutes since Dean had introduced him to the hellhound, and he doubted that it was all Molly’s fault, even though he imagined that had to be quite hard for Sam to wrap his head around. Dean tried to read him – to figure out what was going on his brother’s oversized brain, but he really had no idea about what to make of the expression on Sam’s face. Only thing he was sure of was that his brother still didn’t look scared, disgusted or disappointed, things Dean had kind of expected from his brother after that kind of show.

The hellhound nipped at Dean’s pant-leg after a while of silence, no doubt bored, but Dean payed it no mind and it left the two brothers with a growl. Presumably to go lick demon blood of the floor or whatever else hellhounds did for fun. That was when Sam finally took a breath and met Dean’s eyes. 

“Alright, let’s hear it.” Sam said, obviously prepared for some huge fight they were in his min inevitably going to have.

“What?” Dean asked, genuinely confused about exactly what Sam was getting at.

“You heard him. That demon, what he said. What I did. So lay it on me. Take a swing. Rip me into bloody pieces, if that’s your new thing.” Sam said and Dean could practically see his pulse rising, preparing to face whatever Dean would throw at him. It was kind of impressive, the way he was trying to provoke some kind of reaction out of Dean, when he’d just seen a fraction of what his brother was capable of, instead of instantly begging for forgiveness or whatever else any other soul would have done right about then.

“I’m not gonna take a swing.” Dean said calmly and crossed his arms in front of his chest, as if to prove it. Sam’s eyes tracked his movement and when they were back at Dean’s his face shone with confusion, but Sam had always been stubborn to a fault.

“Then scream! Chew me out.” He said, practically screaming himself now and Dean could keep the smirk that had been building off his face anymore.

“I’m not mad, Sam.” He said, smiling broadly for the first time in as long as he couldn’t remember about something other than blood and torn bodies and screams.

“Come on, you’re not mad?” The disbelief evident in both Sam’s face and tone.

“No.” Dean kept smiling, the look on Sam’s face too good _not_ to drag this out a bit longer.

“Right. Look, at least let me explain myself…” Sam started like he was both blind and deaf. He paused before continuing though and yeah, if Dean had really been mad maybe he would have interrupted his brother. But as it was he just raised an eyebrow and waited for said explanation. 

“You were gone.” Sam continued, pushing the words out and apparently the whole Dean-leaving-him-to-take-a-vacation-in-hell-as-if-he-had-had-a-choice-in-the-matter-thing was a big hang-up for his brother. “I was here. I had to keep on fighting without you, and what I’m doing, what I did. It works.”

Dean flinched as Sam corrected himself and changed doing, to did. Yeah right, his brother was dead now. That hadn’t really sunk in. Being dead had always equaled being _gone_ in Dean’s mind, he hadn’t believed in heaven or hell until hell bit him in the ass and now he was still _there_. It wasn’t the same as being alive, but he existed, and so did Sam. 

“And what exactly are you doing?” Dean asked after a few moments. He had a picture which he thought was pretty accurate in his head, but he needed to hear it from Sam himself before he could quite believe it, because it was so far from anything he’d ever imagined.

“I’m pulling demons out with my mind. Ruby taught me how, she…” Sam paused again, really struggling to get the words out as if talking about it would somehow make it more real than actually doing it. “Azazel dropping his blood in my mouth when I was a baby gave me my powers right? Well, I started drinking her blood. On a regular basis, and more than a few drops.” His eyes averted from Dean’s body completely as he spoke.

Dean nodded to himself because yeah, that lined up with what he’d imagined.

“Do you regret it?” Dean said then, taking a few steps closer to Sam so that his brother would be forced to look at him.

“I was pulling demons out of innocent victims!” Sam said, his eyes snapping back to meet Dean’s with fire in them.

“What, you lost Ruby’s knife?” Dean said, needing to push Sam if the new plan which was beginning to take form in the back of his mind was going to work.

“The knife kills the victims!” Sam answered instantly, his voice begging Dean to understand, to know that he had no other choice. That wasn’t what Dean needed to hear though, he needed Sam to get to a place where he could admit to himself to wanting to use his powers. “I saved more people the last year and a half than we’ve saved in our lives combined.”

“That what Ruby wanted you to think?” Dean said Ruby’s name like it was poison and just thinking of the demon-bitch made the good mood he’d worked up die down a bit.

“I was doing what was right!” Sam persisted.

“It’s a yes or no question Sam. Do. You. Regret. It?” Dean asked again, speaking slowly, as if to a child.

“No.” Sam’s answer came after just a single heartbeat of silence and Dean’s mood was back on top again with that.

“Good.” He said and ignored the expression of confusion that didn’t seem like it would leave Sam’s face no matter how many times he said that he wasn’t mad. “What else can you do?” He asked before Sam could get into another attempts at trying to talk him into being angry, or whatever his brother was trying to accomplish.

“That’s it.” Sam said, his tone putting a question-mark on at the end.

That was kind of disappointing, the plan that he’d started building on just lost a few of its key components, but he guessed that he shouldn’t have expected more from his all-too-human brother. But he had enough to work with if Sam willing to keep using those powers, and from his refusal to denounce them and the lack of begging with Dean to forgive him, Dean assumed that that wasn’t very far off. 

He turned his attention back to Sam and without warning he sucker punched his brother right across the jaw. 

“What the hell was that for?” Sam yelled as soon as the feeling returned to his face, and glared at Dean. Yeah, there was a new kind of darkness behind the regular angry Sam, Dean could both see and hear it clearly now that he knew what he was looking for. 

“That was for ignoring my dying wish.” Dean said with a shrug off his shoulders and a smile playing at his lips.

“I thought you said you weren’t mad!” Sam kept yelling, and yeah, now he believed Dean.

“Oh trust me, I’m not mad about you using your powers. But stepping over my dead body to go do the one thing I begged you not to? Dick move brother.” Dean was practically grinning now, flexing the fingers on his right hand because hitting Sam had fucking hurt.

Sam hesitated a few moments and he looked like he thought Dean had gone certifiably mad. And hell, he had spent decades in the pit, maybe he had and he just hadn’t noticed it.  
“Jerk.” He said finally, not able to keep a straight face as his eyes darted between Dean’s hurt hand and his smile.

“Bitch.” Dean retorted for the first time in a century and he hadn’t realized how much he actually missed his brother. He hadn’t let himself, he’d almost given up on thinking about Sam the minute he stepped of the chopping block because he probably couldn’t have done that if he’d been concerned with what Sam would have thought of him. And from there on out he hadn’t had any room for feelings of loss and regret or the love he felt for Sam, and Sam alone. There was just the fires of hell and blood and that was the way he’d wanted it, the way he’d needed it, but now that Sam was here there things were different.

He was about to get to the next point of his need-to-know-list and had a question on his lips when Sam spit blood from his lip down on the floor and Dean realized that he was still attached to the rack by his hands and feet. He’d gotten so used to having all of his ‘conversations’ that way that he hadn’t even noticed. “Shit.” He mumbled and undid the cuffs with his mind. He caught Sam and let his brother rest his entire weight against him as he came down, completely unprepared for the fall. 

“I got you Sam.” Dean said as his brother tried to walk on his own, away from the support of Dean’s body, but almost hit the ground shaking instead. Being chained to the rack for almost an entire day would do that to a person, Dean knew that first hand. “Just, hold on a sec will you?” He added and held his brother at arm’s reach while mentally discarded his pants and cleaned his upper body of any traces of demon blood. He didn’t want that to get anywhere near his brother. Once he was clean he stepped into Sam’s space again, put one arm behind Sam’s back and half-led half-dragged his brother out of the torture-room.

Once they were back inside the room Dean called home he led Sam toward the couch and let his brother get settled before untangling himself and getting up to find some new clothes. He felt Sam’s eyes track him as he walked over to the wardrobe and got another pair of black slacks and a shirt, identical to the one’s he’d been wearing before getting demon-parts all over him. Neither of them were talking, and Dean was comfortable with that for now. He’d never been one for small talk, got that from his dad and he hadn’t done a lot of practicing since he came to hell. He headed toward the kitchen corner and took two beers out of the refrigerator. He’d considered picking something stronger out of habit, but there was no point since one couldn’t get drunk in hell and the taste of beer was preferable to Jack.

He handed Sam one of the beers and produced a chair for himself to sit on. He figured letting Sam have the entire couch was the least he could do. He straddled the chair backward and leaned his chest against the back of it as he raised his beer in a silent cheers. Sam returned the gesture and took a sip of his drink.

“It’s not even cold, dude.” He said and Dean laughed at how normal the entire situation felt, how comfortable.

“It’s hell.” He answered with a shrug.

Sam seemed to accept that and went back for another sip of his beer and then Dean couldn’t stand being patient until Sam was ready to keep talking. His room was properly warded, he wasn’t worried about someone spying on them without his knowledge. But there was no telling if Alastair might lose faith in him and come knocking, or if he demon would just get curious to see the insides of yet another Winchester spilling all over hell. Not to talk about Lilith. He’d never actually met that bitch in person but he knew that she was far from his biggest fan and Alastair was probably the only thing keeping her from breathing down his neck this very second.

“So what’s the deal with Ruby? Something major must have happened for her to get you on this track. And then for her to come down here, walking around like she owns the place and has Alastair’s ear while you’re the main course for the welcome party.” He said, watching Sam’s face go dark and feeling his own stomach sink as he knew he wasn’t going to like this one bit. 

“She helped me go after Lilith.” Sam gritted out, the hand holding his beer shaking slightly.

“Ain’t that a good thing?” Dean said, staring to get sick of having to coax every single answer out his brother.

“I thought so. Until I realized that killing Lilith was the last step to free the devil. There’s a bunch of seals that needs to be broken for his cage to open, and Lilith dying was the last one. Ruby was in on it the whole time, she saved my life because they needed me to be alive because I was the only one who could kill Lilith. And she needed me to get stronger.”

“So she pumped you full of demon blood and taught you how to use your psychic abilities?” 

“Yeah. Guess you were right about her, she was a manipulative bitch. She screwed me, played mind-games on me and basically did everything in the book to make me go dark-side. But the demon-blood was the worst of it. It was so addictive” Sam stopped like just the thought of it was making him itch for it. He’d been fine watching the demon spill its juice all over the place earlier, but Dean figured that had to do with the fact that there were no actual bodies in hell, and the same way no one craved food they probably didn’t crave drugs either.

“How’d you find her out?” Dean asked.

“I met this other demon who told me that killing Lilith was going to break the final seal” 

“What demon?” Dean had to interrupt, because he had to know what kind of demon had information like that.

“Told me his name was Crowley.” Sam said.

“The king of the crossroads?”

“You know him?” Sam asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“I know _of_ him.” Dean said and the hellhound, who Dean hadn’t even noticed had come inside with them, barked at the name. He couldn’t decipher whether it was a negative or a positive kind of sound, but he felt that there were more important things to focus on at the moment. 

“Yeah, well, he made some pretty good points.” Sam continued. “So I told Ruby, but she still wanted me to go after Lilith and that’s when I got suspicious. We got into a fight and I figured it out, that she _wanted_ me to open Lucifer’s cage. I didn’t think that I let on that I knew but see must have noticed. I met up with Bobby and she followed, totally ambushed me. She killed him and dragged my soul down here. Thought that some time in hell would make me reconsider.”

“Wow.” Was all Dean could say. He took a few more sips of his beer before placing it on the floor beside the chair. “Quite the year you’ve had.” He said with a laugh that came out more bitter than he’d intended. 

“Yeah.” Sam just said, and he looked surprisingly young and vulnerable when he looked quickly from Dean’s face to stare hard at the floor, his head down as if he was getting ready for his own execution, and then his eyes were back on Dean’s, don’t quite daring to hold his gaze but unable to _not_ look for Dean’s reaction. It was adorable, and it reminded Dean of when they were young and their lives were as uncomplicated as they’d ever been.

“I’m at a loss for words, man.” Dean finally settled on. “If I’d known all of this about Ruby yesterday, _trust me_ , she would not be skipping around with just a sore throat right now.” He realized that he was gripping the back of the chair hard enough to get splinters dug into his fingers and stood up, threw the chair against the wall were the TV was and it took down both the apparatus and a lamp with a crash. “How could you have let me let her go, huh?” He railed at Sam, unable and unwilling to hold back his rage. He hadn’t liked the demon-bitch for a second when he was alive and back then she hadn’t even been half this bad, hell, she’d even been useful at times. Now though. Making her suffer would be worth ending back up on the rack for another century of hell-time. He picked up the half-empty beer bottle and propelled it in the same direction as the chair, not feeling any better at the sound of glass shattering.

“Satisfied?” Sam said as if he was amused by the outburst and destroying of furniture.

“Not nearly.” Dean growled. “But there’s not much I can do from here.” He added and took a breath, counted to ten, pictured a stoplight, all of it, to get himself to calm down enough to get to the planning-part.

“How close are you and Crowley?” Dean asked, too riled up to conjure up something else to sit on.

“He’s got a nickname for me.” Sam said and based on the level of suffering in his tone it was a good one, Dean was dying to hear it. And then rip Crowley to pieces with his bare hands and maybe teeth, for calling Sam anything he didn’t want to be called.

“Good, because _we_ are getting out of here. And we’re getting his help to do it.” Dean said was pretty pleased with his plan. It wasn’t foolproof, it rested on the shoulders of a demon who was notorious for being self-serving and cunning, his hellhound and Sam’s powers, but it was as good as any escape-plan-from-hell-plan. 

“We are doing what?” Sam asked as if Dean hadn’t just been the only person talking in an otherwise quiet room.

“We are ditching this joint and getting our asses back topside. Unless you want to stay of course."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you feel like you recognize some of the dialogue it's because some of it is canon! 
> 
> I'll be expanding some chapter with a few paragraphs from Sam's POV soon as well, but I really prefer to write from Dean's POV, hah! So don't have too high hopes, but I feel like some things needs to be explained by Sam as well.


	6. We’re gonna need a body

“We’re gonna need a body.” Dean said, surprised with himself at how steady and matter-of-factly it came out. “I’m not sharing with some civilian, too much of a distraction. And I’m not getting just any out of shape stupid off the street. And if you put me inside some chick I’m gonna kill you.” He continued, kept talking about his meatsuit and trying to pretend that he’d ever be comfortable in someone else’s body.

“I, uhm” Sam started and paused immediately, ducking his head and looking down at his feet. He cleared his throat before continuing, his voice slightly lower as if he was as ashamed to admit to whatever this was as he had been to tell Dean about the demon-blood. “I kept it.” He said. “I kept your body.”

“You what?” Dean said incredulously, not quite able to wrap his head around that.

“I was trying to find a way to bring you back Dean! Giving you a hunter’s funeral wouldn’t exactly have worked. And besides, I kinda knew you weren’t gonna become a ghost.”

“How” Dean started, trying not to imagine how his corpse would look now, years later.

“I know a guy.” Sam interrupted, as if knowing someone who could preserve a body without a soul in it for over a year was normal, even for them.

“You know a guy?” Dean echoed.

“Yeah. I… Look, it’s a long story. You don’t wanna know.” Sam said, still keeping his eyes fixed on his feet.

“Oh trust me, I wanna know.” Dean promised, but he let it go for now. What had been his biggest reservation for going back topside was no longer an issue. “But we’ll get to that once I’m back topside.”

“Look, Dean, let’s just go over this again, okay?” Sam’s bitchface had been persistent ever since the first time Dean had laid out his plan. Admittedly it was a flawed plan. It had way too many variables that could go wrong and too many uncertainties and usually there was no way in hell that Dean would have let his little brother anywhere near a plan like that. But they were in hell and kind of pressed for time and it was the best plan they were ever likely to get. They had to risk it, they were damned if it failed but they were damned if they didn’t try so what harm could come of it? 

Dean had dropped any pretense of being able to break his brother once he realized that Sam still had some spark in him. Objectively he knew that he _could_ not only was he Dean Winchester, notorious in hell for being able to pull anything out of anyone, but it was because he was Dean Winchester he would be able to break Sam. He knew Sam better than he knew himself, he knew just when to push and to pull, when to apply pressure and when to add a gentler touch, what to say and what not to say. But he didn’t want to even try his hand at that. He didn’t want his brother to be another ruined soul he stepped over, he didn’t even buy the argument that could be made that he was sparing his brother eternal torture if he just broke him in time. 

So they needed a way out of the pit and they needed it fast, before any more demons came sniffing around. Alastair would come, there was no doubt in Dean’s mind, though hopefully he’d wait long enough for them to never have to face the demon. But Alastair wasn’t the only demon at the top with a stake in how Sam progressed and none of them held Dean in same high regard’s as the master or torture did. Lilith despised him course and Ruby was probably begging at the bitch’s feet to be let back in the ring. He’d seen Meg skulk around in Alastair’s shadow sometimes, and they’d tried to rip each other to pieces at a few occasions until Alastair had thought it best to never let them be in the same room together again. And that was just the demon’s whose names Dean knew, there were probably hundreds of them who held grudges for being exorcised by a certain Winchester-couple which were whispering doubts in Alastair’s and Lilith’s ears right this second.

“I already explained it three times, Sammy.” Dean said, rolling his eyes at his brother.

“Humor me.” Sam said, clearly not budging.

Dean exaggerated a sighed before laying out the blueprint for his brother a fourth time, doubting that it would make any difference in swaying Sam. He seemed dead set on not liking this plan. “Ruby dragged you down here – she killed you and then she snatched your soul up. Right?”

Sam nodded.

“Well, that means that your soul isn’t supposed to be in hell. You only go to hell if you’ve sold your soul, mixed with witchcraft or if you’re like Hitler 2.0. Normal people doesn’t end up here, even if they cheated on a test or didn’t go to church every Sunday. Not even gay experimenting is enough to get you a ticket down here”

“I haven’t done any gay…” Sam started interrupting, his face suddenly taking on a light shade of red and Dean couldn’t help but laugh.

“Sure you haven’t Samantha.” He said, before continuing his explanation. For the fourth time. It was starting to get challenging to come up with new wordings and new ways to explain it so that Sam would be more inclined to understand just why it would work. “And if your soul is in hell and it doesn’t belong here then all you have to do is have someone upstairs call you back to your body. And poff!” Dean gestured with his hands as if he was a magician vanishing a rabbit or something. “You’re back in the land of the living.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Sam said stubbornly and Dean was really starting to get frustrated, because what part of that didn’t make sense? He knew that he probably should cut Sam some slack, because he had had a century to get used to this kind of thinking while his brother had probably only been given lessons of pain, and no manuals on how hell worked. But still, they didn’t have time for Sam to go through all of those ridiculously complicated books, it had taken him years of suffering from boredom to get through just a fraction of all the quirks and fine-print of hell-business.

“It makes perfectly sense. And while you’re being pulled out you just make sure not to let go of me, and I’ll hitch a ride. All we need is someone up top to chant some spells, draw some symbols, light some candles and so on.” 

“And it’s that easy?”

“No, it’s not going to be easy, we’re escaping hell here, Sammy, not going on a picnic.” Dean said. “It’s not like they’re just going to wave us goodbye and wish us safe travels. That’s where you come in.”

“Dean I told you”

“Yeah, sending demons back to hell is the only thing you can do with your powers, yeah you told me. But I also know that that’s not all that you have the capacity to do.”

“Since when are you an expert on _my_ telekinetic powers? You used to call them my psychic-whatever, tell me never to use them and avoid talking and thinking about them even if you had to hide from the subject at the bottom of a bottle of Jack, Dean.” Okay, so maybe he deserved that but Sam seemed unable grasp the whole decades-later-a-whole-new-Dean-concept he had been trying to tell him for forever.

“Look, a guy can’t change his mind?” Dean said defensively. “You got a way to get us out of _hell_ I’m thrilled. We’re not talking about killing puppies here. And once we’re topside”

“What Dean? What happens with the powers I get from drinking demon blood from the neighborhood?” 

_Well, for starters you won’t be drinking from random fugly demons off the street anymore, that’s for sure_. “We’ll manage it. I’ll help you get it under control.” _Or something like that_. The commentary in his head wasn’t really helping him keep a the concerned big-brother-expression which he knew Sam needed at this point and he tried to keep it to a minimum, but his planning didn’t just stop at getting the both of them topside again. “I’ll lock you in some bunker, chain you up in a basement, I’ll do whatever it takes.” His mind travelled to a scenario where Sam was chained up for a completely different reason and that was the real warning-bell in his head going off and telling him to get this discussion back on track before he revealed just how twisted he’d become since ending up in hell.

“Look all you’ve gotta do is focus your energy on what you want. Your body is waiting, someone has opened the dimensional barrier or whatever and you just have to want to get back.”

“You saying the ‘dimensional barrier or whatever’ doesn’t exactly scream well-thought-through-plan, Dean.”

“Hey, we’ve done a lot stupider things and gone ahead with a lot stupider plans.” Dean flashed a mischievous smile.

“Quit joking around and be serious for five second’s Dean. I’m telling you I can’t do it!”

“You did it this morning. That’s not something you should be able to do, yet you could. And you were strong too.”

“Yeah but that was just… A fluke. Or something. I’ve been tortured for months with barley any breaks now, and that never happened once. Don’t you think I would have done something sooner if I could control this thing?”

“I think” Dean said and he actually came up with the theory as he spoke. “That you just need the right motivation. You said it yourself, you’ve been here for six months now and you’re not even close to your breaking-point. But I get behind the knife and suddenly you won’t even let yourself get stabbed. I’m thinking somewhere deep down you knew that I could eventually break you, so you tried to stop it.”

“You make it sound so easy!”

“It is! I could turn this place into fucking candy-land in two seconds flat. The candy would probably taste like ass because it’s hell, but point is I could do it. I just focus on what I want and it happens. Same when demons throws us around the room like fricking ping-pong-balls.”

“I just don’t think you’ve thought this through, Dean. There has to be some other way, some better way, that doesn’t rely on a hellhound delivering a message to a demon and me tapping into power’s I didn’t even know I had until this morning.”

“Molly won’t let me down.” Dean said instantly, a flash of anger hitting him as Sam questioned the loyalties of the hellhound. “And if Crowley is anything like his reputation says he’ll realize what’s best for him. And you can do it.” He didn’t add the I-believe-in-you at the end, hell was bad enough without the chick-flick-moments but he felt like it had bled through in his tone of voice anyway. “We don’t have time to come up with something else. Every hour we’re here we get closer to the inevitable. I might have scared the lower demons off from trying to steal glances of the Winchester-show but if Lilith or Alastair comes knocking”

“We’ll be screwed.” Sam finished.

“No, you’ll be writhing in pain.” Dean corrected him, his face suddenly serious as heart-attack.

“What?” Sam asked, confused like he’d completely lost track.

“That’s how we are going to get a reaction from you. You used your power last time when I was about to cut into you. Well, I’ll keep doing that until you’re desperate enough to get away that you use your powers.”

“You…” Sam started, clearly having a hard time swallowing that part of the plan, which Dean hadn’t revealed until now. Telling his brother that he was going to have to torture him wasn’t something he’d been looking forward to and it definitely wasn’t going to help win Sam over and make him see how the plan was good enough to at the least try. “More torture? You wanna torture me?”

“Look Sam, no, of course I don’t want to torture you.” Dean sighed and rubbed a palm over his face. “But I have to. What if Alastair pops in and sees us sharing a beer and talking escape-plans? I don’t know when he might come, he does as he pleases and he definitely doesn’t ask for my permission he wants something. And trust me, he wants to see me turn your insides into your outsides real bad.”

Sam sighed, a mix of resignation and dread settling on his face.

“I know that for you it’s only been a year Sam. But I’ve been here for a century and while I might not be up to speed on everything topside I’ve learnt a thing or two about demons and magic and a lot of stuff that aren’t even written down in books upstairs, so you’ve gotta trust me on this one. I wouldn’t put you through this if I didn’t think it would work, and if I honestly thought that this plan had no chance of succeeding I would put you on that rack and I’d torture you until you broke because that’s better than being hell’s bitch for eternity. But this will work. I might not be up to speed on all the terminology, but I’m not as dumb as you think I am Sam.”

Sam got a sad look on his face at that and got up from his seat at the couch. Dean followed him with his eyes as his brother came and sat down on the bed, where he’d settled some time during the second time he’d repeated the plan. The bed dipped as Sam sat down and he was suddenly a lot closer than Dean had expected him to be.

“I don’t think you’re dumb Dean.” Sam said, the sincerity in his voice to heavy that it made Dean feel all warm in places that hadn’t been experiencing any feeling in so long he’d forgotten he even had them.

“Trust me?” He pressed, after a few moments of silence.

Sam sighed and looked at his hands where they were placed in his lap, before looking up at Dean again. “I trust you.” He said and Dean would have hugged him if it wasn’t for the fact that they didn’t do stuff like that. The fact that he’d been feeling a growing urge to be as close to his brother as physically possible since he’d first popped up on his rack was his problem. Sam shouldn’t have to be subjected to Dean clinging all over him. Definitely wouldn’t want that once Dean started in on him with his knives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be more intense and way more interesting than this one! Just had to get through the whole planning-stage and some more explanations with this one.


	7. The destruction has to wait until business-hours

Near the end of the first day Sam’s upper body was glistening with sweat, his breaths coming unevenly and ragged. Dean had just put him back together after spending the afternoon cutting of piece after piece with an oversized butcher’s knife. Dean was seething with frustration at this point. He’d already cleaned off Sam’s blood from his hands and clothes more times than he could count that day, but he still felt like he was covered in it. Sam was no closer to getting a grip on his powers – he’d put up somewhat of a fight before lunchtime when Dean was making him into a pincushion for his knifes, but that had only lasted about a few seconds and since then it didn’t even seem like Sam was trying.  
Dean persisted in his opinion that his plan was good. They didn’t have enough time to let Sam hone his skills and come to grips with the larger extent of his powers, they had to provoke a full-blown outburst, make Sam snap.

“This won’t stop until you decide to make it, Sam.” Dean said softly, trying to be the encouraging big-brother teaching Sam how to ride a bike or hold a gun instead of the incredible frustrated and fed up more or less demonic self he actually was. He’d delivered that exact line several times that day, hoping to drill it into Sam until it stuck on some unconscious level. “You gotta do this man. It’s either this, or you cave and let the devil out of his cage.”

“Or I burn in hell for eternity.” Sam said, as if that was the better option. Dean didn’t bother arguing that Sam would never make it three months under Dean’s knife without giving in somewhere down the road and they both knew it. Instead he let Sam have something to cling to at the least. He knew how extremely powerful having something to focus on could be, and what Sam needed now more than anything was confidence.

“Yeah, ‘cause that would be fun.” He just said with a huff.

“At least it wouldn’t be you cutting into me.” Sam spoke so quietly that Dean would have missed it if it wasn’t for the fact that he was standing within just a few feet of him in an otherwise completely quiet room. The words surprised Dean, they weren’t what he’d expected, although he had no idea what he’d expected exactly.

“No, I would be right with you on the rack.” Dean said dryly, not really wanting to think too much about that third scenario because that just couldn’t happen. He’d torture his own brother into submitting to the will of the demons and the devil and anyone else if it meant that they’d avoid being at the mercy of those same evil sons of bitches until the end of times. But again, there would be no reason for him to have to go there because Sam would get the hang of his powers and his plan would work just fine. It had to.

The look on Sam’s face at those words was a mix of realization (for a smart person his brother had a pretty narrow focus sometimes), hopelessness and horror and Dean groaned, because Sam wasn’t focusing on the right thing again. He seemed to be way more concerned with Dean burning in the metaphorical and literal fires of hell than he was for his own soul and that was Dean’s thing, dammit. He was the big brother, the eldest, the one who was supposed to take care of and worry about Sam, not the other way around.

“Yeah, after months with me the rest of hell will seem like a vacation.” Dean said instead, going back in the conversation in order to steer clear of the panic he could feel starting to rise inside him at the thought of him and his brother both being the number one target of all of Hell’s anger.

His brother didn’t answer with a clever remark or something like Dean had expected him to though, and he swallowed audibly as he noticed that Sam’s eyes were starting to fill up with tears. Really, what had he said? Sam shook his head slowly and settled his eyes somewhere in the space behind and a little to the side of Dean’s face so that he didn’t have to look him exactly in the eyes.

“It’s not because you’re Alastair’s star-pupil that I don’t want it to be you doing this Dean.” He started and Dean was about to protest or something, but he couldn’t come up with the right words. “I mean you’re… fuck, you’re good at this.” Sam continued and fuck if this wasn’t a fucked up situation. “The rumors of what you’re capable of doesn’t even cover half of it. Fuck, you could probably break me. Hell, I’m thankful that option isn’t on the table yet because _Dean_.” Sam’s way of pronouncing his name said everything he could bring himself to put into words – that he was tired, fucking done with being in excruciating pain all of the time, that Dean was so good that in just a day he’d almost accomplished what the entire mob of demons in hell could in six months. But what Dean was really focused on was the absence of the appropriate fear, disgust or disappointment any sane hunter would have felt at seeing his brother this far down the road to becoming a demon. He had to be fricking imagining it, but it sounded an awful lot like Sam was praising him, that his brother was _proud_ of him for being that good at his new trade.

He was obviously becoming delusional from being in hell without his brother. Was most likely imagining all kinds of stuff he’d like to hear, yeah that was the most logical scenario.

“It’s because I can see that you don’t want this Dean.” His brother kept talking Dean almost forgot what topic they were on for a while, so lost in trying to wrap his head around the Sam on the rack. So much exactly like he remembered his brother but underneath all of that there was something _more_. He might have guessed that it was the demon-blood making Sam act less… human, if they had been topside. But that wasn’t the case and it wasn’t the demon-blood because things like that didn’t work in hell because there was no physical body for Sam to fill with power-juice.

“I can see that hurting me hurts you, and I don’t want that. I don’t want to be the cause of that Dean. Not again.” Sam said, his voice barley a whisper once again at the last words but Dean still heard him perfectly. And apparently they were back to Sam trying to take the blame for Dean’s trip downstairs and every single bad thing that happened to him since then. Like Sam had had any hand in Dean assembling a little box with ingredients and driving out to a deserted crossroads while his corpse was rotting in some shack. Like Sam had been the one to bargain the worst fucking conditions of any deal ever made for Dean. As if it hadn’t been for Sam Dean would never have broken down for Alastair. He should only know that Sam was in fact the reason for why Dean had been able to hold on for as long as he did.

“I’ve been through worse.” Dean said, shrugging, although he was pretty certain that no, he hadn’t. Sam’s bitchface was practically screaming bloody-liar but it wasn’t Sam’s most impressive bitchface and Dean decided that that was enough for the day. If Alastair came knocking for a nightcap Dean would simply think of some Stockholm-syndrome-tactic like the one he’d been planning on implementing before learning that Sam was a secret weapon ready to fire once the nuclear codes had been found entered. And any other demon that might want to come spy on the mutual destruction of the Winchester-brother’s would have to wait until business-hours. 

He waved the restraints keeping Sam to the rack away with a gesture of his hand and caught his brother by the arm to support him as he dropped half a foot to the floor on unsteady legs. Sam took a breath and steadied himself, his legs a bit wobbly from being used to kind of just hanging the entire day. Then he stepped away from Dean without a word and let Dean lead the way back to his room.

Once the door to the chamber of torture was closed behind them Dean sighed audibly and headed straight for the bathroom where a long-needed shower was waiting for him. He popped his head out of the door before closing it behind him and looked for Sam, who was standing around in the middle of the room, quite awkwardly. 

“Want anything to eat?” He offered, but wasn’t surprised that Sam shook his head without even considering it. Eating had always been Dean’s guilty pleasure (among many other things) and he liked doing it in hell even though logically he knew it was all an illusion. But it wasn’t Sam’s style.

“Well, make yourself at home. Mi home in hell es su home in hell.” Dean said even though he doubted that Sam would appreciate his sense humor. “You can watch TV or something, everything works pretty much like normal down here only you’ll never get the channel or the show you _really_ want to watch and the only porn that comes through is shitty amateur-videos. Because, Hell, I guess.” He couldn’t seem to stop himself from ranting. “I’ll just… shower.” He finished sheepishly, not really wanting to go into detail about why he needed to shower even though it was obviously pretty redundant in hell and he was completely clean. But Sam seemed to get it anyway, and just nodded in answer.

Dean closed the door to the bathroom and quickly stripped and got under the spray of water. He scrubbed every inch of himself and cleaned out his nails several times, and once he finally managed to get rid of the feeling of still being covered in Sam’s blood it had been over half an hour. 

When he stepped out of the bathroom, wearing a thin t-shirt that was a size to big but comfortably loose and a pair of boxers he found Sam asleep on top of the covers of the bed. He smiled at the sight, glad that Sam hadn’t been traumatized and felt safe enough with Dean to let his guard down with him, even though they were in hell and he’d spent the day pulling his body apart in creative scream-inspiring ways. Usually he’d have any one of his charges screaming or begging or trembling at just the sight of him within the first week. 

He settled on the bed beside Sam and let himself look at his brother. A century and he still hadn’t forgotten a single inch of Sam’s features. He figured that it was pretty likely though that his brother had gotten a few more scars since he’d last seen him, he hadn’t been paying close attention to his brother’s body while he tortured him, other than being stunned by his huge muscles or course. Because, who wouldn’t be?

Sam made a noise low in his throat and his forehead contracted and wrinkled up a bit, as if he was having a bad dream or something and Dean couldn’t help but inch closer to him like he’d always done when they were little. Before they had gotten too old to share a bed all the time and too weird to be touching each other as much as they were used to.

“S’okay Sammy.” He murmured, his head close to his brother’s ear and his voice soft so that he wouldn’t wake Sam, but hopefully get through to him on some subconscious level. “S’ okay, you’re safe.” He had to catch himself before snorting at how incredibly ironic that statement was, but hell if he didn’t mean it with his entire being. He _was_ going to keep Sam safe here, even in hell, one way or another. 

His brother’s face relaxed again after a few moments, his breathing returning to a slow steady rhythm. Dean considered himself for a moment before reaching a hand out to pull back a few strands of brown hair from Sam’s face. That stupid hair, too long and too soft for any self-respecting demon-killer and vampire-slayer professional ghost-hunter, but damn if Dean didn’t just find it endearing and absolutely adorable. He let his fingers toy with the rebellious strands for a while, his touches feather light so that he wouldn’t wake his brother up. Eventually he moved a bit closer to Sam’s body again, to get a better angle for the hand still playing with his hair, and released the strands in favor of sliding his fingers into the entire mop. He held his breath as Sam’s body shifted a bit beside him, but let the tips of his fingers run along his scalp and deeper into his hair when he didn’t wake. 

It still hadn’t fully hit Dean that Sam was here, that he was with him again. He’d gotten so used to the idea of not ever seeing Sam again in his entire life. That was the only way he could truly consider accepting Alastair’s offer and getting himself out of the unbearable pain he was in. And once he’d made his first cut with Alastair’s razor Dean really didn’t want to see Sam ever again, or so he’d thought until he was hanging on his rack. It had been so much easier being hell’s bitch without thinking about the one thing that kept him from really going all the way down into that dark demon-smoky black-eyed spiral. But he realized now just exactly how far he’d been taken the whole denial-thing that his father had been the first Winchester to trademark until now that he had Sam again. Dean had sold his soul for Sam for fuck’s sake, he loved his brother not only more than anything else in the world but much enough to burn in hell for eternity, literally. It was one thing with civilians who sold their souls for fame and fortune, money, health, a loved one or whatever they cared about, but it had been different for Dean. Different because he was a hunter, because he knew that hell was real. And having lived through it he would still have done it again given the chance.

He kept his fingers in Sam’s hair, lightly massaging his scalp and pulling softy on strands of silk. Touching Sam made it feel real, made Dean feel like this wasn’t just pointless mind-numbing centuries of time rolling by, the same way that torture helped ground him and keep him in the now. It made him feel alive, something that wasn’t easy to get in hell, one of the main things which turned most souls into demons. Sam stirred suddenly, and before Dean could retract his hand and be accused of cuddling or risking some really awkward chick-flick-moment Sam opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to the side to look at Dean.

“I, um, sorry” Dean started and began to carefully extract his fingers from Sam’s hair. That hand had been inside his ribcage several times that day and his brother probably didn’t want it anywhere near him again, understandably.

“No, don’t.” Sam said immediately though and put a hand on Dean’s elbow, keeping him from withdrawing his arm completely. “Feels nice.” Sam said, his words a bit slow and sleepy still.

Dean considered for a heartbeat, but he’d never been able to say no to Sam before in his life and he didn’t know why he hadn’t expected that to happen in hell either. He kept his fingers in Sam’s hair, inching even closer to his brother and smiling as Sam leaned into the touch. The realization that he really could have broken Sam down easily with his initial plan hit him again as Sam closed his eyes again, looking way to vulnerable for Dean’s liking. His brother _needed_ to become stronger, he needed to make Sam snap and refuse to let himself become a pawn in this demon-scheme. The soul under his hands right now wouldn’t make it five minutes if they tried to run. He still wasn’t properly motivated enough to be able to access the power inside of him, still wasn’t focused enough to aim it and shape it the way that Dean just knew he could.

He was torn between indulging Sammy and himself for a bit longer, a part of him content to just do this for hours, and giving Sam another speech on how he needed to shape up and take this more seriously and try harder. He had just decided on the latter when it seemed like Sam had read his mind.

“Don’t.” Sam said.

“What?” Dean asked defensively even though he was pretty sure exactly was Sam was referring to.

“You’re thinking too much.” Sam said, without even opening his eyes.

“Wow, did I just heard that right, coming from you Sam?” Dean teased and his thumb stroke Sam’s temple.

“Just, can’t you just… can’t we…” Sam was struggling to find the words and Dean was starting to wonder if he’d stepped out of the shower into some alternative reality where it was opposite-land. “Feel’s good. Can’t I just, I really just need something to feel good for a while Dean. Please? You can lecture me tomorrow morning.”

Dean was convinced against his better judgement even before his brother said please, but the word made his chest feel way too tight. What the fuck was he doing, asking Sam to trust him and his plan and forcing him to this point, where he had to beg to not be tortured?

“Anything, Sammy, anything.” He promised, words murmured low and he put some effort into making his movements comfortable for Sam and not centered on his own awe at feeling Sam’s hair slip through his fingers. 

Dean wasn’t sure for how long his hands had been in Sam’s hair, or when exactly he’d decided to abandon Sam’s hair in favor of tracing the outlines of Sam’s muscular and oversized upper body through his t-shirt, but that’s where his fingers were when Sam suddenly cleared his throat. He rolled of the bed and away from Dean’s fingers faster than Dean could react and Dean had fight to suppress the disappointment and hurt from not showing on his face. Apparently his brother wasn’t entirely comfortable around Dean anyway, and Dean had to remind himself that that was pretty fricking normal. If they got out of this and the worst thing that came out of it was that Sam wouldn’t be able to look at him without remembering how it felt to have his organs rearranged inside his open chest then Dean would consider that a pretty good deal. Sure, that wouldn’t be entirely easy to live with for him but it would be really greedy of him to hope that they’d both come out of hell without _any_ scars. It might even turn out to be a good thing, maybe Sam wouldn’t be able to stand being near Dean and could go back to school or whatever normal life he dreamt of that wasn’t inside the doors of the impala, and could finally get himself away from Dean. 

The future Dean had in mind wasn’t exactly safe or normal, or any of the thing Sam had always wanted for himself. They included putting the things he’d learned about demons down here to the test and making them regret they ever let him inside the gates of hell in the first place. That was no place for his little brother.

“Shower.” Sam mumbled with his back to Dean, who made a towel and a pair of fresh clothes in Sam’s size appear inside the bathroom for his brother. Then he turned over on his side and got under the covers to go to sleep. Tomorrow would be another day of having to come up with ways to hurt his brother in order to move his brilliant plan along. He was starting to seriously regret letting the demon from the other day run back out into hell. He should have kept it so that he could take out all of his feelings on that oily black piece of what once used to be a soul. Torturing Sam just wasn’t doing it for him, blood wasn’t just blood and screams weren’t just screams. He was itching for something to carve into like he meant it, to have his head ringing with screams as if they were church-bells and bird-song instead of feeling like Sam’s screams were reaching into him and slowly pulling his brain apart.


	8. Chapter 8

On the third day, he showed up.

There was a single curtesy-knock on the door leading out in the hallway before the door swung open and the master of torture stepped inside. Dean was thankful for that small warning so that he could take a breath and mentally prepare himself for facing Alastair. Having the demon this close to Sam made the hairs on his neck stand and he clenched his jaws shut so that he wouldn’t say something rude and rebellious. The escape-plans had taken root in him and he could almost smell the air of the living world, and he wanted to scream at the submissive shell of a person (or demonic person, whatever) he’d been before Sam had appeared on his rack. He tried to concentrate on his work instead. Alastair wouldn’t be very happy if he lost focus just because he had an audience. That was probably why he’d come anyway, to see one Winchester get pulled apart by the other. He had always been bitter over the fact that John had escaped hell before Dean had broken and Dean assumed that some brother-on-brother-torture was the next best thing. 

Dean was currently applying acid to Sam’s exposed muscles and tissues. He alternated between pouring cups of the liquid over him to just dripping a few drops into strategically chosen places, never letting Sam figure out where it would burn next so that he wouldn’t be able to brace himself.

Alastair was content to watch for what felt like over an hour. He made sounds similar to laughter, but was too dark and sadistic to really be compared with anything brought from happiness, once in a while, when Sam screamed particularly high. Dean could feel the demon gradually inch closer to the rack, until only an inch separated their bodies. He could practically feel the demon grinning and he reached over Dean’s shoulder and pointed to a particularly sensitive bundle of exposed nerves on Sam’s body which Dean had purposefully avoided. He had no choice now though if he didn’t want to tip Alastair off and better that Sam felt pain now under his own hands where he could control and regulate it, than him burning in hellfire for eternity.

He went to work at where Alastair had indicated and slowly poured the substance over it. He could practically see how Sam’s body lit up with pain and he had never concentrated on keeping a straight face this much in his entire existence. Sam’s eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth fell open and his throat tensed but no sound came out.

“You’re not starting to forget what I taught you, are you Dean?” Alastair drawled and Dean felt his breath on the shell of his ear.

“No sir.” Dean answered immediately, the words just as much of a reflex as pulling the hand off a hot stove-top.

“Good.” The demon said and from the tone of voice was satisfied with what he’d seen. Convinced that Dean wouldn’t revert back to his old righteous, fully human self, just because it was his brother on the rack.

“Are you getting close?” The demon asked a few seconds later and Dean didn’t need to turn around to look at him to know that Alastair’s eyes were roaming over Sam’s shredded body. “It looks like you’re getting close.”

“He’ll break.” Dean said, putting everything he had into matching Alastair’s anticipation. In front of them Sam’s body had started to shiver, and his brother was struggling to breathe, probably because his lungs had burn-holes in them the size of coins. “Within a month”

“I think he looks quite ripe now.” Alastair interrupted and reached around Dean again. Dean had to fight the urge to turn around and shove the demon off as it stuck two fingers inside Sam’s bicep until the tissue of the muscle gave and parted for them. On his way out his fingers were claws and the tore through the entire muscle. Sam whined, a long and wounded sound which hit Dean like a shotgun to the chest.

“He’s not ready.” Dean said, raising his voice a bit to drown out Sam’s cries.

“Why don’t we ask him, hm?” Alastair completely disregarded Dean as if he hadn’t heard him and it would have made Dean furious even if he wasn’t currently planning mutiny. 

“You’ll send me back days!” Dean tried to protest, because yeah, Sam looked like he was pretty out of it and desperate enough to just go with it, just so that he didn’t have to be in any more pain.

“Saaam.” Alastair’s way of singing his brother’s name made Dean want to cringe. The nice version of the demon was so much worse than the angry one.

Sam’s eyelids fluttered, but other than that he didn’t react at all.

“Look like you wore him out.” Alastair stated, sounding almost disappointed.

Dean shrugged in answer, keeping his eyes on Sam’s body, making sure to remember the sight so that he could draw out his revenge later and make it that more sweeter. Then, suddenly the body he was staring at was whole. Sam’s pulse was beating fast and he was breathing like he’d just run a marathon.

“What do you say, Sam? Aren’t you sick of being in pain?” Alastair’s smooth voice brought Dean down memory lane. That voice had made it so hard for him to keep fighting way back when. It was honey smooth and full of promise and just so soft. Alastair had used those exact words on Dean and while they hadn’t been his tipping point they sure had brought him at least ten years closer to the edge. 

But Sam wasn’t Dean. He didn’t even hesitate to spit at Dean’s feet and Dean couldn’t have been more proud of his brother. His plan was going to work if Sam had the strength enough to withstand Alastair like that. Dean felt the rage fill the demon behind him, and he put his hand over the arm Alastair lifted, probably to tear into Sam’s ribcage.

“You sent him to me for a reason, Alastair.” Dean reminded the demon and forced his hand to stay on the demon’s arm, holding him back, despite knowing that that would most likely make him the target of that rage instead. “He is a hunter. He’ll refuse you and everyone else in hell out of spite. He and John are more alike than we ever were. But he won’t be able to say no to me in the end. I’ve got this. Trust me.” He fought to keep his voice calm and reasoned as opposed to pleading and desperate, like he felt.

“So your brother doesn’t want to share, huh? Tsk tsk tsk.” Alastair laughed at Sam, but took his arm back, probably realizing that Dean was right.

Then Dean was struck with an invisible force, backhanded across the cheek hard enough that he fell to the ground on one knee, the air pulled right out of him.

“Don’t talk back to me, _boy_.” Alastair said, eyes narrowing in anger as he looked down at Dean, daring him to fight back. Dean had learned to swallow his pride in front of Alastair a long time ago though and stayed down.

“No sir.” He said.

“See, it’s your brother who will suffer the worst if you don’t agree Sam.” Alastair said, stepping around Dean to grip Sam’s jaw tightly in one hand and forced him to look at his brother. “He broke down and joined us after a measly thirty years. Imagine how he will suffer once he doesn’t have even have an out of the hellfire. I imagine I’ll turn him into something even prettier then.” Alastair’s smile made Dean’s blood run cold. He’d always suspected that the demon had been disappointed when Dean finally broke. He’d had his look on his face like someone had just taken his favorite toy before the appropriate satisfaction and triumph had settled.

Sam still didn’t say anything though and Dean was relieved. He’d told his brother time and time again that he’d be _fine_ , no matter what happened to him, because if Alastair was going to find one of Sam’s weak-spots Dean would be it.

“I’ll break him.” Dean assured again, hoping to turn Alastair’s attention off Sam as he stood up again. Sam looked like he was going to lose it with Alastair making threats about Dean all up in his face and a pissing match between the two of them was the last thing Dean needed right now. There was no way defusing something like that was going work out favorably for anyone else than Alastair.

“Oh, I know you will.” Alastair said and let go of Sam’s face. He walked in a slow circle around Dean, looking him up and down. “You are my favorite after all.” And wasn’t that what anyone wanted to hear? Dean didn’t give an answer, he didn’t trust his voice not to betray his disgust for the demon and he didn’t really think Alastair was trying to strike up a conversation anyway.

The demon stopped once he was at Deans back again, so close now that they were lined up front to back, leg to leg, chest to back, shoulder to shoulder. Dean’s eyes snapped up to Sam’s face and his heart sank in his chest as he saw blind-hot rage flicker in Sam’s eyes as he demon gave an approving hum. There was no way Alastair hadn’t seen that as well and this was exactly what Dean had been dreading. This was where it could all fall apart. If he hadn’t spent the last century in hell this would have been where he’d started praying.

There was no mistaking that Alastair had indeed seen the flicker of rage on Sam’s face before he could cover it up under a mask of indifference, because his hands immediately sneaked around to the front of Dean’s body. The demon’s cold fingers rucked up his shirt a few inches before sliding over his stomach, almost but not quite dipping into the waistband of his pants. 

This wasn’t a regular thing. 

At first, Dean had dreaded that rape was going to be an unavoidable element of his torture, but Alastair never went there, despite the look he got in his eyes whenever Dean had told him to go fuck himself, to blow him or spewed other obscenities. Dean hadn’t been able to figure out why until later, until he himself picked up the knife and got an insight to the mind of the person in front of the rack. He figured that Alastair had abstained from the various techniques of torture that might have broken him sooner, but would have messed with his head and turned him into something unrecognizable. As it was he was still very much a hunter, still Dean Winchester, just with an insatiable thirst for blood and a complete disregard for other people’s suffering, and that was Alastair’s pride. Anyone could make anyone break by playing mindtricks on them and manipulate them into the most terrible twisted cases of Stockholm-syndromes, but he’d wanted Dean to be completely clear on everything, he wanted him to say yes of his own violation and not because he was on some head spin or had forgotten what was right and wrong.

Then after Dean had broken Alastair hadn’t given him much consideration for a while. He’d fulfilled his goal and Alastair was sick of him when he couldn’t make Dean scream and writhe in pain anymore. If he hadn’t had John Winchester as a father Dean might not have been able to recognize the disappointment Alastair had showed toward him the first few years. Then Dean had turned out to be a natural when it came to torturing and Alastair’s interest in him had gotten reignited and although Dean hated to admit it even to himself he wouldn’t have refused Alastair if the demon had made any advances toward him at that point, scared of ending up on the wrong side of Alastair’s knife again. 

But it wasn’t until two (maybe three, time was hard to keep track of in hell and pretty useless to care about since wasn’t any time-limits on hit stay there) decades ago, after breaking some particular soul Dean couldn’t remember but which seemed to be significant in Alastair’s twisted mind, that the demon had looked at him with that kind of sickness in his eyes again.

Dean averted his eyes the best he could from Sam but there wasn’t much room since they were standing at barley arm’s length away. Fucking sadistic Alastair. On second thought though Dean wondered why he hadn’t foreseen this. The demons had always loved hinting at Dean and Sam being closer than brothers should be, and trust Alastair to take rumors like that and just run across state lines with it. He gasped when Alastair’s clever fingers suddenly pulled on the rope which tightened Dean’s slacks until the pants fell to his ankles on the ground, and instantly found their way to his half hard dick.

“What’s the matter Dean?” The demon drawled, his lips touching Dean’s ear and the foul breath of sulfur blowing into his face. “Don’t want your brother to know how eager you are to spread it for a demon? Hm?”

“Gees.” Dean half muttered, half panted at the words as Alastair’s hand started pumping his cock and his anatomy completely disregarded the fact that the demon disgusted him beyond measure. He closed his eyes as Alastair’s thumb swiped over the head of his cock and sent a shiver up his spine. It was definitely easier to get through this without having to look at Sam. With his eyes closed he could pretend that it was just him and Alastair (picturing someone else, someone taller, with longer hair and an anti-possession-tattoo over his heart just would work while the demon was breathing down his neck) doing this in front of some random soul. They’d done that once, made the soul of some crazy homophobe who’d killed two gay guys and then sold his soul so that he would never feel the urge to touch another man. While god didn’t seem to grasp the concept of karma, Hell certainly attended to every negative detail in the backpack. Yeah, that was exactly like that time. Except it wasn’t. This was Sam. So fucking close and when Dean couldn’t help rolling his head back and leaning it on Alastair’s shoulder his brother made this _sound_ that made Dean’s eyes snap back open and his dick twitch. 

He was leaking, fully hard in Alastair’s palm now but the stroking wasn’t enough. The demon was just toying with him, giving him almost what he needed how he needed it but not quite enough. Putting on a show. Alastair loved his shows. For whose benefit or destruction it was Dean didn’t have enough blood in his brain to decipher. Could be that the demon was stroking his ego in sync with Dean’s dick, showing Sam just exactly how much his Dean was now. Or that he liked making Dean squirm by showing Sam who much his brother wanted it from a demon. Or it could be any of another thousand reasons even Dean wasn’t twisted enough to think of. Alastair’s logic was often way beyond the realm of sanity and Dean rarely tried to figure the demon out at those times, afraid that if he was able to understand Alastair he’d go equally mad.

Dean was just about to start fucking _begging_ Alastair to stop fucking around and just get him off, just so that he didn’t have to suffer through this whole thing for much longer when the demon beat him to it and spoke instead.

“See how he likes it, Sam?” There was that smooth velvet voice again, poisonous due to its softness. “How he’s just _dripping_?” Dean groaned at the words, something inside him exempt from logic and reason and his willpower responding to the dirty talk on an animalistic level. Sam gasped, and Dean couldn’t fucking keep his eyes on the ceiling or skirting around Sam’s edges anymore. He settled for some point on one of Sam’s ears, centered enough that he could read his brother’s expression but not enough that he’d have to risk looking him straight in the eye.

Alastair took a step even closer to Dean, and he had to force his jaws shut as he felt the demon’s cock dig into his ass, the only thing separating them the demon’s clothes. “This could be all you, you know Sam.” Alastair kept talking, almost whispering the words as if he was telling some scandalous secret, but the proximity of the three of them made the words unmistakable. And fuck, Dean had no idea how he managed to keep from almost coming at the thought of Sam’s fingers replacing Alastair’s, but maybe there was a god who cared for after all. 

Sam’s face was struck by horror at the demons words (of fucking course, Dean had spent over a century without his brother, no wonder he wanted him in every way he could possibly want a person now that they were reunited, especially considering that he was in hell, hell messed a person up, but Sam was just a normal person without those twisted thoughts) and he looked at Dean with panic in his eyes. Which wasn’t the reaction Dean had quite expected and it took his thoughts off his dick for a moment, before Alastair let go of it and started to move his finger lower at an excruciatingly slow pace, and hell no. The demon really had to go there, didn’t he?

“Your brother is so sweet, you have no idea.” The demon kept babbling as his finger dipped behind Dean’s balls, his abandoned cock twitching against his stomach. “He’ll do whatever I tell him do, I’m sure. Wont you Dean?” Dean’s brain didn’t catch up until a few moments later, almost having missed the question and his que to answer.

“Yes” He said, stuttering on the s but proud that he was coherent enough to remember that the demon hated any modern expressions like yeah, which would have been easier to throw out. “Sir.” He added instantly after taking in a sharp breath as he felt the demon’s finger part the cheeks of his ass.

“See, Sam?” Alastair continued and Dean’s thighs was starting to tremble. “All you have to do is say yes. Take a short trip upstairs, finish a few things and then come back here and your brother will be waiting. Open and spread and willing.” The pad of Alastair’s finger touched against the sensitive skin around Dean’s hole and he bit the inside of his cheek until it started to bleed to keep from fucking _whimpering_. He just needed something at this point, inside him, on his dick, anything. Pride be damned. He was beyond caring about Alastair’s one-sided conversation with Sam, the demon had obviously forgotten to get off at the right station and taken the train straight to crazy-town if he thought that the promise of fucking his own brother was what was going to tip Sam over the edge. And he _needed_ to be fucking touched with more than Alastair’s teasing prodding, his finger almost dipping inside the rim of muscle. 

“In fact” The demon just wouldn’t stop talking, and it was starting to get on Dean’s nerves enough that he might slip up and give him some attitude, but then Alastair’s unoccupied hand wrapped around Dean’s dick and he was distracted by his own instant groan of pleasure. “I think I might just let you have a taste right now. If. You. Just. Say. Yes.” The demon timed the last words with the strokes on Dean’s dick, slowly going all the way from the root to the tip and back down again on each word. Dean was so far gone with it to actually give much thought to the expression of desperation on Sam’s face, the kid looked like he was holding on for dear life which didn’t make any sense because he wasn’t in any pain as far as Dean could tell. And he’d _told_ him that he’d fine whatever Alastair might dish out and that Sam shouldn’t even think about caving just because Dean got a few members severed. Alright, so he hadn’t specifically included for Sam to also not give in if Alastair tried to shove his dick up Dean’s ass, but he just hadn’t really been in the mood to drop that bomb on his brother. But he thought he’d made himself pretty clear when he’d said he could take everything and anything.

Sam’s mouth opened and for a terrifying second of clarity through the haze pleasure clouding Dean’s mind the blood drained from his face and he thought that his brother might actually say yes. Then Alastair kept talking, obviously not as familiar with Sam’s tells as Dean was and thank fuck for that.

“Isn’t having your brother worth ending the world for, Sammy?” Alastair said.

 _I’m the only one who gets to call him that._ The though ran through Dean’s mind automatically, without him actually reflecting over it and he would have fricking shoved Alastair off him, plan and eternal future be damned, but something beat him to the punch.

“He’s the only one who gets to call me that.” Sam said and suddenly he wasn’t tied up on the rack anymore. He was standing on the floor in front of it, one hand outstretched and absolute murder in his eyes.

“You” Alastair started and Dean had never seen as much of an inch of surprise on the demon’s face until now. He didn’t hesitate to grab to opportunity and hit the demon square in the face. He was surprised by how extremely satisfying that small human infliction of pain made him feel as the demon fell to the ground, too taken aback to react to what was happening above him.

“You got this, Sammy?” Dean said, turning to his brother, almost hesitant to meet Sam’s eyes when they were that dark. They weren’t demonic, with the entire eyeball swallowed up by black smoke, but whatever hazel was usually there had darkened to jet black. 

“Yeah, I’ve got this.” Sam answered and closed his eyes as he placed his hand on Dean’s shoulder and gripped him tight. Dean had no idea how his brother’s psychic powers actually worked, he’d pretty much been guessing and hoping for the best this whole time but it was better to have a flawed plan than no plan. And it seemed like he’d gotten it right. Just like with his own demonic abilities to manipulate his small corner of hell, Sam’s power seemed to stem from what he wanted, what he craved, what he needed (Dean was in no way going to even think _what he wished for_ , because this was demonic fucking powers fueled by rage and demon-blood and hell-magic, not pixie-dust and blue stars).

Dean’s entire being felt like he was burning, but not just burning by regular fire. It was an intense burn like nothing he’d ever felt before, and that was saying something considering he’d been in hell, and it fucking _hurt_. He wasn’t sure if he was actually making sounds, but he was screaming in his head, loud enough that it felt like he was going to explode, unless the burn consumed him first that was. It seemed to radiate from his shoulder where he knew Sam’s hand had to be connected to him, but he couldn’t feel his brother’s palm or his finger’s, just the burn. He was vaguely aware of the unmistakable black demon-smoke surrounding them at one point, grabbing at anything it could try to get its paws at. Fingers, legs, hair. But he was pretty sure he fought it off, kicking like crazy and lashing out in all directions, not quite able to concentrate on anything other than the burn.

He thought he said Sam’s name at some point, or tried to say, maybe the words never made it past his lips. He had no idea how much time had passed, it felt like it was rushing by in a blur of motion while at the same time standing completely frozen. Another demon came at them, maybe there were more of them that time because there was a whole lot more smoke. He fought every single one of them, his hunter-instincts not forgotten even though it’d been a while since he’d actually had to fight something, fueled by the desperation because he knew that if one got to him, if he got separated from Sam, he would be stuck in hell. They were probably tearing into him, trying to pull large enough chunks from his body so that he’d fall away from his brother’s grip piece by piece, but the pain didn’t register over the persistent burning.

Then it felt like he was being thrown into a washing machine, the world turned on its head and tilted in all directions at once and he lost Sam in the at some point. Everything was dark for a few seconds after that, the burning stopped he felt like he was floating, until he was falling down fast and hard, like gravity had remembered that he wasn’t an exception to the laws of physics. It was still dark and for a minute he felt panic rising his chest – he was separated from Sam, he was still in hell and then his body remembered to breathe and he opened his eyes, his physical eyes, in his physical body.


	9. Shooting one's self in the foot. And then in the other foot.

First thing Dean saw when he opened his eyes was a rundown water-damaged ceiling, wherever he was no one had probably lived there for years. His heart was beating like crazy in his chest, hard enough to hurt and his breaths were coming fast. His was still in fight-mode, still feeling like smoky demons tried to grab at everything they could get their hands on, still feeling the phantom pull of Sam’s hand on his shoulder. He moved to sit up, and had to fight a wave of nausea as his head started spinning like he was on a carousel. He would come up with some metaphor for how he was feeling, but to say that he felt like he had literally been dragged out of hell while demons were chasing him felt like a pretty accurate description. 

He took in his surroundings, the hunter’s instincts that had been dormant in hell came to life instantly now that he once again had a physical body consisting of flesh and blood to protect and care about. He had no idea what would happen if he died at this point – if his soul was still hell-bound, if he’d reclaimed it by skipping out, or if he was enough of a supernatural thing to be disqualified for heaven and hell both and would head to purgatory instead. He didn’t feel very demonic, or however he envisioned demonic-ness to feel, but he didn’t feel the way he did back when he was human either.

The state of the room he was in was just like the ceiling, beyond even the most thorough restoration and just needed to be torn down. It was pretty remarkable that it was even still standing – he had to be in a state which wasn’t often plagued by tornados and hurricanes. The three windows were half boarded up and a green heap of vines had spilled over the windowsill and onto the floor through one of them. An even for Dean Winchester, son of most notorious functioning alcoholic John Winchester, alarmingly large amount of empty liquor bottles had been shoved into one corner and a few pieces of shattered glass glinted in the moonlight. He quickly decided to not put his feet on the ground before he got some shoes on. There was no way of knowing if tetanus vaccine still worked once the body had technically died.

There were stacks of books in another corner, they looked ancient enough that the pages were probably falling out at the slightest touch and in combination with the empty bottles Dean guessed that tombs were religious texts Sam had plowed through in a desperate attempt to get Dean out of hell. For once in their lives it seemed like Dean had actually been the one who was more successful in his research.

Sam.

Dean’s head whipped around the room fast enough to make him lightheaded again, and he drew a breath of relief at seeing his brother’s body laid out on the floor beside him. His brother was clearly breathing, his chest rising and falling as if he was sleeping. 

“Sammy?” He tried, but he didn’t get any response from his brother. Worry was nagging at him, but he figured that he shouldn’t freak out yet. Sam had been the one who’d done most of the work at dragging the both of them out of hell, his soul probably needed to recharge, or whatever. He’d give it twenty minutes before he started to worry.

He looked around the room again, and noticed something he hadn’t seen at the first check. Around them on the floor was a circle of chalk with glyphs, symbols and runes connecting to it on the outside. Several candles had been places in the narrow spaces between the power-symbols which seemed to have been burning for quite some time judging from the melted mess around them. Witchcraft. No doubt there were more symbols and obscure runes written in languages never invented in dried blood which just weren’t visible on the dark wooden floor and Dean felt like he should check his pockets for hexbags with animal-skeletons in them. He fricking hated witches, although now he supposed he had to admit that they could be useful. No doubt the King of the Crossroads had gotten his message and set this whole thing up, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to cross the barrier or whatever the correct term was from hell to the world of the living. 

He made it all of five minutes before he started freaking out about Sam still not having woken up yet and hell, he deserved some credit for lasting longer than thirty seconds. Sam drifted from peaceful sleep to what looked like the start of a seizure. Beads of sweat were emerging on his chest, neck and forehead and drew Dean’s attention to the fact that his brother wasn’t wearing a shirt. Instead his chest was covered in symbols like the ones on the floor and those were unmistakably drawn in blood. He had snapped up enough things in hell about witchcraft and other ways to tap into the magical resources hidden from most humans to know that that was probably Sam’s owns blood and Dean gritted his teeth at the thought of some witch bleeding Sam, with or without his soul inside his body to experience the pain. It was the principle of the thing that mattered. 

It wasn’t nearly hot enough in the room for Sam to be sweating when he wasn’t even wearing his usual layers of plaid. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He couldn’t recall what season or month in was supposed to be on earth but from the way a chilly breeze made its way through the room every once in a while he guessed that they were somewhere up north. Sam’s forehead was scrounging up in wrinkles, the veins on his throat tense and when his head started lolling from side to side Dean got really fricking panicked. Sam’s hands and feet started shaking and Dean scrambled to think of what to do but came up blank, because he had no idea what was happening to his brother. He’d never seen Sam like this. His own soul seemed to have gone into back into its body without any complications and this wasn’t really an area of expertise for him.

He didn’t realize that he’d been shouting Sam’s name as until he felt his throat go sore and several minutes later he was pushing Sam’s convulsing body to the floor with a grip on his shoulders that would probably leave bruises. Then Sam opened his eyes. Dean didn’t feel like sarcastically thanking whatever non-existent or non-caring god in charge of the planet though, because is anything Sam seemed worse off now that he was conscious. His eyes darted from place to place, not being able to concentrate on anything and the pain he was in was written all over his face. Dean had seen Sam in pain, those terrible days in hell and during and after countless hunts before that, but nothing would ever make him get used to how it made him feel. And now there wasn’t even any bones to salt and burn or exorcisms to recite in order to avenge his brother.

“Dean” Sam finally exclaimed between ragged breaths and Dean tightened his grip on Sam’s shoulders until his knuckles went white.

“Sam! Sammy, what do you need man, what can I do?” He asked, the words almost tripping over each other as he rushed to get them out.

“Need… I need… Dean.” Sam didn’t seem coherent enough to make a sentence.

“Talk to me man, I can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s broken.” Dean tried for logic, Sam was always the logical one. But all he got in response was a broken _nnnnghhh, gaaah_ , between breaths that couldn’t possibly have been less helpful.

He was considering slapping his brother across his face, despite having promised both himself and Sam that he’d never cause his brother as much as a papercut once they were topside. But he didn’t have time to work up to that because suddenly they weren’t alone in the abandon shack. 

“Hello boys.” Dean turned his head around without letting go of his grip on Sam’s body. In one of the doorways leading into the room stood a short man in a black suit to which the English accent probably belonged to.

“Take one step closer and you’ll wish you were dead pal.” Dean said as the man started moving toward their circle. He’d never been one to trust strangers, especially if said stranger wore what looked to be a ridiculously expensive suit or came anywhere close to a vulnerable Sam, and he wasn’t about to start now. Besides, the man was most likely a witch on top of that, since it was fairly logical to assume that he was the one who’d drawn up the fancy artwork on the floor. And if he wasn’t, he was guaranteed to be a demon, what with the Winchester-luck and everything. Maybe they’d hit the jackpot and he was both.

“Now Dean, is that any way to treat a friend?” The man asked, his eyebrows adding a silent _Hm?_ But at least he stayed put a few feet outside the circle on the floor.

“Who the hell are you?” Dean asked aggressively, not wanting to take his eyes off the stranger but torn with the need to direct his full attention to Sam, who was all but foaming at the mouth at this point.

“I’m chocked that you don’t recognize me! Sam and I are practically besties and that little doggie you sent me found me well enough.” Dean was just about to get up and make good on his first threat just to get the man to answer his goddamn question without wasting his time when the realization hit him. “Ah, I see that Sam really is the brains of the operation.” The man added and blinked to reveal a pair of red eyes.

“The king of the Crossroads.” Dean said dryly and he guessed that he shouldn’t have been surprised at seeing him here, he had sent Molly to find him and asked for his help after all. But just the thought of dealing with another demon had made him seething and he had probably added the fact that once he let this particular demon out of the box he’d have to deal with him, to his ever growing pile of denials deep down in his subconscious.

“Friend’s call me Crowley.” The demon said and Dean stared at him with murder in his eyes, clearly conveying that he was _not_ the demon’s friend. “Fine, be that way.” The demon shrugged and put the hands in the pockets of his overcoat. “Well, if that’s all, I guess I should be going. Wouldn’t want to be somewhere I’m not welcome.” He continued and started to turn around to leave.

Dean sighed inside, he fucking hated demons, but Crowley’s deliberate slow movements told Dean everything he needed to know – that Dean didn’t want to let him leave because he knew what was wrong with Sam and how to make it better. All Dean had to do was swallow his pride and ask the demon for help, _yet again_. Crowley had a reputation, even in hell. There was a reason he’d made king of the crossroads – no one struck a deal like him and no one was trickier. Asking him to get Sam and himself out of hell had been an act of desperation and only slightly better than the alternative, asking the demon for even _more_ favors was like shooting himself in the foot. And the other foot. And the arm, and then throwing himself off a cliff.

But this was Sam, so there wasn’t really even a choice to make.

“Wait!” Dean called after just a moment’s hesitation and the demon didn’t even try to hide the smirk on his face.

“Yes?” It asked, as if what Dean wanted wasn’t obvious.

“Stop screwing around you dick, and help my brother! I know you know how.” Dean almost shouted.

“A! What’s the magic word?” Dean decided that he was putting Crowley at the top of his shit-list then and there, going after Alastair, Ruby and the devil would have to wait. The demon seemed to have a change of heart when he met Dean’s eyes and saw the look there though. “Fine, it doesn’t matter, you’ll grow to love me in time.” He said and clapped his hands together.

Dean blinked in surprise as another demon appeared out of thin air and the new demon looked just about as surprised as he was.

“Are these the Winchester’s? I’ll go assemble the forces right away…” It started, looking expectantly at Crowley as if he was awaiting praise for doing a good job. And that was just great, getting double-crossed by a demon, Dean should have seen that coming.

“Oh you won’t be going anywhere darling.” Crowley said to both the demon and Dean’s surprise. Faster than Dean had a chance to react to properly Crowley produced a knife from inside his coat and slit the demon’s throat. A devil’s trap appeared on the floor beside Sam and the demon was pushed into it, its vessel choking on the blood and staring at Crowley as if he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

“What the” Dean started put he turned to look at Sam instead when Crowley motioned with the knife in his brother’s direction. 

Sam met Dean’s eyes for a fraction of a second, regret and humiliation clear as day in them, and then turned away from him and to get at the dying demon on the floor. Dean let go of his brother’s shoulders, his body in some kind of state of shock and unable to restrain Sam even though he really fucking wanted to. Sam’s face wasn’t visible from the angel Dean was at, but the way his brother was leaning down over the demon’s neck there was no doubt in Dean’s mind about what Sam was doing. His brother stopped his trembling within seconds and Dean recognized his symptoms for what they were. Withdrawal. Withdrawal from fucking demon-blood. 

Sam had told him about the demon-blood – had explained how it had been addictive, how he’d gotten hooked, how Ruby had used it to manipulate him into being his puppet, but hearing about it and seeing it were two completely different things. Dean hadn’t really given any thought to what would happen once they got topside, too focused on actually getting there but this, this was going to be a problem. For one, Sam being addicted to anything just wasn’t practical, it was too much of a weakness that the other side could exploit and it would slow him down. Second, demons were disgusting and he didn’t want Sam near them, or them anywhere near Sam. Yeah, maybe the latter was the more important. Sam was _his._

And when Sam fricking moaned as he swallowed a mouth full of blood, the muscles on his back flexing as he started moving to get closer to the bleeding body, Dean was finished. He put his hands back of Sam’s shoulder and pulled, trying to get his brother off the damn thing and back into the real world where they had a Crowley-sized problem to deal with for starters. And no doubt the entire demonic army in hell would soon crawl out to retrieve their fugitives. His brother didn’t budge though, but strained to maintain where he was, to get closer to the blood slipping out on the floor. Dean put more effort in and yanked Sam with strength he was pretty sure he didn’t have before he’d died. His brother dislodged from the demon and looked around the room, disoriented and almost… drunk?

“Sam. Hey, Sam.” Dean called, tapping his brother lightly on the shoulder where his hand was still placed. Sam looked over at him, his eyes void of recognition at first and yeah his brother looked intoxicated, high or whatever the clinical term was when it came to demon blood. He returned to himself within a few second though and nodded, straightening up to a comfortable sitting position and dragging his palm across his mouth and chin in an attempt to erase any evidence of what he’d just done. As if Dean would forget that easily. But this wasn’t the time for them to have the discussion Dean was starting to outline in his head right now.

“Well, this has been lovely, but I have other business to attend to. Do make sure to not mention my name to any of my associates, yes?” Crowley said as he pointed a gun at the demon still bleeding out on the floor and pulled the trigger. The unmistakable crackle and flashes or red and yellow erupted from the demon as soon as the bullet made its way into the flesh, but Dean only have time to open his mouth to challenge Crowley’s claim on the Colt before the demon had vanished into thin air.

“Son of a bitch.” Dean muttered.

“So, you met Crowley.” Sam said with a dry laugh.

“I hate him already.” Dean answered and clenched his fist in anger.

“As far as demons go, he’s really not that bad.”

“Not that bad?” Dean started and was about to start listing the way the demon had managed to piss him off within five minutes of meeting him plus the reputation he had, but he decided to pick his battles. They wouldn’t have been able to escape hell without the artwork on the floor and Crowley’s assistance, so until the demon came calling for what he undoubtedly though they owed him, he’d worry about more pressing matters. “You good?” He asked, worry bleeding through in his voice.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Sam said and averted his eyes from Dean as he moved to stand up.

“Okay, so where are we?” Dean asked as he rose to his feet as well.

“Wyoming.” Sam answered.

“Is it safe?” He didn’t bother clarifying that he was asking if Ruby would come out of hell and start sniffing around this place because Sam and she had been there before.

“No. The impala is in Texas. That’s where I, well, that’s where Ruby killed me. I bet that the place will be swarming with demons once we get there though.” Sam said.

“I ain’t abandoning Baby all defenseless just because she might be in the middle of some trap.” Dean said immediately as he started wondering about the odds of them being able to steal a Ferrari or something equally fast in their immediate surroundings so that the trip would go as quick as possible. 

“Didn’t think you would.” Sam said with a smile on his lips.


End file.
